English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For May 12/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Letter to the Philippians 04/01-07:”Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved. I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 11- 12/2021

Ministry of Health: 544 new infections and 20 deaths
Lebanon Announces Two-Day Eid al-Fitr Lockdown, Curfew
Abiad 'Welcomes' Decline in Virus Cases
U.S. Sanctions 7 Lebanese over Hizbullah Ties
US Treasury Targets Hezbollah finance official and shadow bankers in Lebanon
Aoun Urges Intl. Intervention on Israeli Aggression against Palestinians
Report: EU to Adopt ‘Carrot and Stick’ Policy in Lebanon
President follows up on developments in occupied territories, receives letter from Haniyeh
Rahi meets Del Col
Rahi condemns Israeli violations in Jerusalem, urges Arab League to declare firm stance thereon
Bassil Says No to Ending Subsidies before Devising Full Plan
Lebanon Announces Two-Day Eid al-Fitr Lockdown, Curfew
Abiad 'Welcomes' Decline in Virus Cases
Geagea Blames Fuel, Food Crises on Hizbullah-FPM Rule
Army Confiscates Narcotics Manufacturing Plant in Baalbek
Japan Prosecutors Say Ghosn Said Nissan Pay Plan Was Not Set
Lebanese Army Foils Bid to Smuggle 60 People by Sea
Hizbullah Agent Reportedly Hurt in Israeli Strike in Syria
Young man found hanged in his home in Nmayrieh
Berri meets Egyptian ambassador over general situation
Hariri receives Archbishop Najm
Diab chairs meeting of Economic and Price Control Committee
Druze Sheikh Aql welcomes Turkish ambassador

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 11- 12/2021

Amnesty International: Israel Using 'Unlawful' Force in Jerusalem
Middle East Council of Churches renews its call to lift the occupation of the Palestinian people
Netanyahu Vows to Step Up Attacks on Hamas after Two Israelis Killed
Islamic Jihad Says Two Top Commanders Killed in Israeli Strikes
26 Palestinians Killed as Israel Strikes Gaza after Hamas Rocket Barrage
U.N. 'Deeply Concerned' by Israeli-Palestinian Violence
Paris Urges Israel to Use 'Proportionate' Force against Palestinians
U.S. Calls on Israel, Palestinians to End Civilian Deaths
Blinken Says 'All Sides Need to De-escalate' in Middle East
Israel's Ben Gurion Airport Halts Flights over Gaza Rockets
Hamas Fires '130 Rockets' at Tel Aviv after Israeli Strike Destroys Gaza Tower
Qatar's Emir Visits Saudi Arabia as Rift Eases
Iran Says Warned U.S. Navy over 'Unprofessional Behaviour'
Iran Candidates Register for Presidential Election
Putin Submits to Parliament Bill on Exiting Open Skies Treaty
At Least Nine Dead in School Shooting in Central Russia
Machnouk picks up regional signals, prepares for the post-Hariri era

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 11- 12/2021
They Are Burning Us Alive!” Say Sinai’s Coptic Christians/Raymond Ibrahim/Coptic Solidarity/May 11/2021
The Realignment …On Iran, Biden is finishing what Obama started. And his top advisers are all on board./Michael Doran and Tony Badran/The Tablet Magazine/May 11/2021
Audio/The Middle East Muddle/Foreign Podicy/May 11/2021
How Governors and State Legislatures Can Mitigate the White House’s Iran Strategy/Richard Goldberg/Mosaic/FDD/May 11/2021
Taliban leader boasts of security under his Islamic Emirate/Thomas Joscelyn/FDD's Long War Journal/May 11/2021
The Assad Regime Is Using ISIS to Justify its Activities in Eastern Syria/Ishtar Al Shami/Washington Institute/May 11/2021
From Trump to Biden Monograph Afghanistan/Bill Roggio/FDD's Long War Journal/May 11/2021
Biden administration faces a crucial test in Marib/Khairallah KhairallahThe Arab Weekly/May 11/2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 11- 12/2021

Ministry of Health: 544 new infections and 20 deaths
NNA/Tuesday 11/2021
The Ministry of Public Health announced 544 new coronavirus infection cases, which raises the cumulative number of confirmed cases to 533685.
20 deaths have been recorded over the past 24 hours.

Lebanon Announces Two-Day Eid al-Fitr Lockdown, Curfew
Naharnet/Tuesday 11/2021
Lebanese authorities on Tuesday announced a lockdown and a curfew for the first two days of Eid al-Fitr, while noting that coronavirus cases have significantly dropped in the country. A statement issued by the government-affiliated Disaster Risk Management Unit said all kinds of celebrations and rallies will be banned during the lockdown while a curfew will be imposed as of the morning of the first day of Eid al-Fitr, which will likely be observed in Lebanon on Thursday. While essential workers will be exempted from the curfew, citizens who have urgent tasks will be asked to request a movement permission through an electronic platform set up by the government or via SMS. The platform grants citizens and residents permissions to visit vegetable, fruit and fish markets; veterinary clinics and pharmacies; bakeries; clinics; hospitals; pharmacies; supermarkets; mini-markets; foodstuffs shops; gas stations; and medical laboratories. Places of worship will meanwhile have to abide by a 30% capacity and hygiene and social distancing measures while travelers heading to or from Beirut’s airport will have to carry travel tickets or boarding passes. Restaurants and cafes will meanwhile be closed to the public and will only be allowed to offer 24/24 delivery services. The statement also mentions that as of Saturday, restaurants and cafes will be allowed to open their outdoor spaces until 12:30am.

Abiad 'Welcomes' Decline in Virus Cases
Naharnet/Tuesday 11/2021
Director at the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, Firass Abiad “welcomed” the continuous drop in the Covid numbers, but said it would be “too early” to be optimistic. “The majority of the population remains without immunity to the virus. Even the post-infection immunity, acquired presumably in the January wave, will wane with time. Of course, vaccines can provide protection, but new virus variants may evade the acquired immunity,” said Abiad in a tweet. Many individuals above 75 yrs category “have not yet registered on the platform to receive the vaccine. Out of those registered, 28% have still not been vaccinated. In other categories, and daily, hundreds still do not show up for their appointments,” he noted. Warning of the new Indian variant, Abiad said it has “already been identified in nearby countries. As we approach the summer, the airport is recording higher levels of activity. Without quarantine, or genetic sequencing, we will neither stop, nor identify when the new strain arrives.” People in Lebanon are “fed up with Covid, and desperate to resume economic activity in the midst of a financial crisis, and buoyed by the falling Covid numbers, the highly sociable Lebanese are resuming their gatherings, while throwing caution, and masks, to the wind. “The faltering economy makes it harder for authorities to enforce, and for people to accept, restrictions. It also means hospitals are less prepared should a new Covid wave arrive. Moreover, many healthcare workers have left, further weakening existing health system capacity,” he emphasized. “In short, the above mentioned factors combined could be detrimental if the new variant arrives. Currently, the only barrier to that happening seems to be divine providence. On the good side, more vaccines will be arriving in Lebanon soon. Let us hope it will not be too late,” concluded Abiad.

U.S. Sanctions 7 Lebanese over Hizbullah Ties
Naharnet/Tuesday 11/2021
The United States on Tuesday announced sanctions on seven Lebanese nationals allegedly linked to Hizbullah, which is designated as a “terrorist” organization by Washington. “The threat that Hizballah poses to the United States, our allies, and interests in the Middle East and globally, calls for countries around the world to take steps to restrict its activities and disrupt its facilitation networks,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. He added: “We applaud the countries in Europe, and South and Central America that have taken action against Hizballah in recent years and call on other governments around the world to follow suit.”Moreover, he said that the United States is designating seven individuals involved in “financial operations” with Hizbullah ties to “continue impeding the group’s ability to operate in the global financial system.” Blinken added that the seven individuals have been sanctioned for “acting for or on behalf of Hizballah or Al-Qard al-Hassan (AQAH), which provides cover for Hizballah’s financial activity.”“While AQAH purports to serve the Lebanese people, in practice it illicitly moves funds through shell accounts and facilitators, exposing Lebanese financial institutions to sanctions risk related to conducting business with a designated entity. Moreover, by hoarding cash that is desperately needed by the Lebanese economy, AQAH empowers Hizballah to build its own support base and compromise the stability of the Lebanese state,” the statement said. One of the seven individuals designated, Ibrahim Ali Daher, serves as “the director of Hizballah’s Central Finance Unit, which oversees the group’s overall budget and spending,” Blinken added. “The remaining individuals designated used the cover of personal accounts to evade sanctions targeting AQAH and transferred approximately $500 million on behalf of AQAH,” he said. Noting that these designations reinforce recent U.S. action against “Hizballah financiers who have provided support or services to Hizballah,” Blinken vowed that the United States will “continue to take action to disrupt Hizballah’s operations.”A statement issued by the U.S. Treasury meanwhile said that Hizbullah’s Central Finance Unit, allegedly led by Ibrahim Ali Daher, oversees the group’s “overall budget and spending, including the group’s funding of its terrorist operations and killing of the group’s opponents.”“The other six individuals designated today used the cover of personal accounts at certain Lebanese banks, including U.S.-designated Jammal Trust Bank (JTB), to evade sanctions targeting AQAH and transfer approximately half a billion U.S. dollars on behalf of AQAH,” the statement added.

US Treasury Targets Hezbollah finance official and shadow bankers in Lebanon
Reuters/May 11/2021
The US Treasury Department on Tuesday imposed sanctions on seven Lebanese nationals it said were connected to the Iran-backed militant Hezbollah movement and its financial firm, Al-Qard al-Hassan (AQAH). The Treasury in a statement said it had blacklisted Ibrahim Ali Daher, the chief of Hezbollah's Central Finance Unit, as a specially designated global terrorist alongside six people it accused of using the cover of personal accounts at Lebanese banks to evade sanctions targeting AQAH. "Hezbollah continues to abuse the Lebanese financial sector and drain Lebanon’s financial resources at an already dire time," Andrea Gacki, director of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in the statement. The Treasury also blacklisted Ahmad Mohamad Yazbeck, Abbas Hassan Gharib, Wahid Mahmud Subayti, Mostafa Habib Harb, Ezzat Youssef Akar, and Hasan Chehadeh Othman in connection with Hezbollah and its financial firm. The move freezes any US assets of those blacklisted and generally bars Americans from dealing with them. Those who engage in certain transactions with the designated individuals also risk being hit with secondary sanctions.

Aoun Urges Intl. Intervention on Israeli Aggression against Palestinians
Naharnet/Tuesday 11/2021
President Michel Aoun urged the international community to intervene and end Israel’s aggression against Palestinians, the National News Agency reported on Saturday. NNA said that Aoun is following up on the latest developments in the occupied territories of Palestine amid Israel’s continued aggression against al-Aqsa mosque and east Jerusalem district of Sheikh Jarrah. “No peace without justice, and no justice without respect for rights,” said Aoun. He considered “tyranny and the deprivation of rights will only lead to more violence and injustice.”Tensions in Jerusalem have flared into the city's worst disturbances since 2017 since Israeli riot police clashed with large crowds of Palestinian worshippers on the last Friday of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. Israel and Hamas exchanged heavy fire on Tuesday, with at least 25 Palestinians killed in Gaza, in a dramatic escalation between the bitter foes sparked by unrest at Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

Report: EU to Adopt ‘Carrot and Stick’ Policy in Lebanon
Naharnet/Tuesday 11/2021
The European Union expressed concern over the “political status-quo” in crisis-stricken Lebanon, saying a whole line of options is taken into consideration including pressuring the political class hampering a solution for Lebanon’s economic crisis, al-Joumhoria daily reported on Tuesday.
The European Union "expressed its dissatisfaction with the political stalemate Lebanon is witnessing, and preparations have begun to impose sanctions on political officials whom it considers responsible for the obstruction,” EU's Foreign Affairs Chief Josep Borrell announced on Monday evening.
After a meeting of the foreign ministers of the bloc countries in Brussels, Borrell said: “We are working on adopting a policy of carrot and stick in Lebanon. All options are on the table in order to put pressure on the political class preventing a solution for the impasse." Borrel said he discussed the crisis with Lebanon’s caretaker Foreign Minister Charbel Wehbe last Sunday, expressing his regret that the situation in Lebanon had not improved. A European diplomat told Al-Arabiya over the weekend that the European External Action Department distributed an options paper to member states, including incentives to activate the partnership with Lebanon, if it forms a reform government. He said the paper “does not exclude the option of sanctions.We are moving forward step by step towards concrete measures.”Last week, France's foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said ahead of his arrival in Beirut, that French travel restrictions on Lebanese officials suspected of corruption or hindering the formation of the Cabinet were “just the start.” France has been trying to force change on Lebanon's ruling class, whose corruption and mismanagement has driven the tiny country into the ground and pushed it to the verge of bankruptcy.

President follows up on developments in occupied territories, receives letter from Haniyeh
NNA/Tuesday 11/2021
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, addressed event developments on the occupied territories, in light of continuous Israeli attacks which began few days ago in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, followed by the targeting of Al-Aqsa Mosque. The President called on the international community to intervene and prevent Israel from continuing its aggressions, reaffirming that “There is no peace without justice, and no justice without respecting rights”. In addition, President Aoun saluted the steadfastness of the Palestinian people, considering that “The tyranny of the principle of force, displacement and deprivation of rights will only lead to more violence and persistence in injustice and violation of international laws and decisions related to the Palestinian right to establish an independent state, with Jerusalem as its capital”.
Letter from Ismail Haniyeh:
The President received a letter from Head of the Political Bureau in the Movement of Islamic Resistance “HAMAS”, Dr. Ismail Haniyeh, in which he was briefed about the latest security developments, in light of continuous Israeli attacks, especially after the events of Bab El-Amoud and Sheikh Jarrah, followed by the profanation and abuse of the blessed Aqsa Mosque, its squares and those in it.
Haniyeh also asked President Aoun to urgently move and “Take a firm stance against aggressions and crimes, and to work to mobilize political and diplomatic positions on Arab, Islamic and international levels to prevent the Israeli occupation from continuing barbaric aggressions against the Palestinians, their land and holy sites in the occupied Jerusalem and Blessed Aqsa”.
Moreover, Haniyeh stated that “Masses of out Palestinian people in the occupied Jerusalem, which have paved the path of steadfastness and patience for more than 50 years in defense of land and sanctities on behalf of the entire Arab and Islamic nation, will not stop in this path and will continue their march until liberation, return and establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital”.
Displaced Minister:
President Aoun met Displaced Minister, Mrs. Ghada Shreim, today at the Presidential Palace, and deliberated with her general affairs. The work of the Displaced Ministry, in light of the measures taken to end the file of the displaced, were also tackled.
MP Traboulsi:
The President received MP Adnan Traboulsi, and addressed with him general affairs and recent political and governmental developments.
MP Traboulsi called for speeding up in the government file, in accordance with constitutional principles and rules, “Since any delay will result in people paying the price. The solution lies in cooperation between all those involved in forming the government, in order to reach a rescue solution, which is now an important and national demand”. “I felt the will of His Excellency to emerge the current crisis. He is working in this direction and his hand is outstretched to cooperate with everyone to save Lebanon” Traboulsi said. MP Traboulsi also stated that the meeting tackled social affairs, “Which the President pays full attention to ending the suffering of the Lebanese”. “The need to activate productive economy rather than rentier economy, which resulted in the current deterioration, was also discussed. In this context, the President assured me that he seeks to support agricultural and industrial sectors and provide necessary facilities for them, because they constitute a lever for national economy” MP Traboulsi added. On the issue of subsidies, Traboulsi said “This is a delicate issue, and it needs an integrated and comprehensive national treatment, and not separate measures and procedures which do not achieve desired results”.
“Cooperation between various ministries, departments and agencies is essential so that subsidies do not go to those who do not deserve it” MP Traboulsi concluded. ---Presidency Press Office

Rahi meets Del Col
NNA/Tuesday 11/2021
Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros Rahi, received this Tuesday afternoon in Bkirki, the commander of the international forces operating in the south, Major General Stefano Del Col, with whom he tackled the general situation in Lebanon, and the conditions on the southern border.

Rahi condemns Israeli violations in Jerusalem, urges Arab League to declare firm stance thereon
NNA/Tuesday 11/2021
Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Mar Beshara Boutros Rahi expressed "agony over the fall of victims, including innocent children, on the holy Palestinian land," underlining "solidarity with the Palestinian people and their righteous cause."Rahi denounced “Israel's violations in Jerusalem and its attacks on the Palestinian people,” deeming those aggressions an evasion of international charters and laws, and a persistent transgression of international legitimacy decisions that define the correct frameworks and concepts for permanent peace. Rahi called on the Arab League to declare a firm stance on what is happening [in Palestine], (…) "on the basis that the priority is to achieve a just and comprehensive peace, and not to implement political plans that serve international interests in the region at the expense of the interests of its people."He also urged "the Lebanese to deepen their unity and solidarity to face the repercussions of a worsening situation, and to preserve Lebanon and distance it from the implications of the region's challenges and transformations by adhering to the Arab peace initiative and the international rules governing the status quo on the southern borders."

Bassil Says No to Ending Subsidies before Devising Full Plan
Naharnet/Tuesday 11/2021
Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Jebran Bassil on Tuesday urged against lifting the subsidization of essential goods before reaching a “full plan” to deal with the consequences of such a move. “More than a year ago, we demanded the gradual rationalization of subsidies through a decision from the government, a timeframe and a law from parliament to finance ration cards,” Bassil tweeted. “This is a big decision that should be taken in agreement between the government and the parliament, after consulting with the central bank, and no one has the right to monopolize it and spark panic among the people,” Bassil added.
Noting that putting an end to “the exploitation of traders and smugglers” is “necessary and essential,” the FPM chief warned against lifting subsidization before “declaring a full plan and approving its funding.”Commenting on the central bank’s "conditional" plan that would allow depositors to access part of their foreign currency savings stuck in Lebanese banks, Bassil said “any amount paid to depositors from their accounts, in any currency, is rightful and a duty.”“It would also restore some confidence, lower the artificial dollar exchange rate and reactivate the economy,” the FPM chief added.

Lebanon Announces Two-Day Eid al-Fitr Lockdown, Curfew
Naharnet/Tuesday 11/2021
Lebanese authorities on Tuesday announced a lockdown and a curfew for the first two days of Eid al-Fitr, while noting that coronavirus cases have significantly dropped in the country. A statement issued by the government-affiliated Disaster Risk Management Unit said all kinds of celebrations and rallies will be banned during the lockdown while a curfew will be imposed as of the morning of the first day of Eid al-Fitr, which will likely be observed in Lebanon on Thursday. While essential workers will be exempted from the curfew, citizens who have urgent tasks will be asked to request a movement permission through an electronic platform set up by the government or via SMS. The platform grants citizens and residents permissions to visit vegetable, fruit and fish markets; veterinary clinics and pharmacies; bakeries; clinics; hospitals; pharmacies; supermarkets; mini-markets; foodstuffs shops; gas stations; and medical laboratories. Places of worship will meanwhile have to abide by a 30% capacity and hygiene and social distancing measures while travelers heading to or from Beirut’s airport will have to carry travel tickets or boarding passes. Restaurants and cafes will meanwhile be closed to the public and will only be allowed to offer 24/24 delivery services. The statement also mentions that as of Saturday, restaurants and cafes will be allowed to open their outdoor spaces until 12:30am.

Abiad 'Welcomes' Decline in Virus Cases
Naharnet/Tuesday 11/2021
Director at the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, Firass Abiad “welcomed” the continuous drop in the Covid numbers, but said it would be “too early” to be optimistic. “The majority of the population remains without immunity to the virus. Even the post-infection immunity, acquired presumably in the January wave, will wane with time. Of course, vaccines can provide protection, but new virus variants may evade the acquired immunity,” said Abiad in a tweet. Many individuals above 75 yrs category “have not yet registered on the platform to receive the vaccine. Out of those registered, 28% have still not been vaccinated. In other categories, and daily, hundreds still do not show up for their appointments,” he noted. Warning of the new Indian variant, Abiad said it has “already been identified in nearby countries. As we approach the summer, the airport is recording higher levels of activity. Without quarantine, or genetic sequencing, we will neither stop, nor identify when the new strain arrives.” People in Lebanon are “fed up with Covid, and desperate to resume economic activity in the midst of a financial crisis, and buoyed by the falling Covid numbers, the highly sociable Lebanese are resuming their gatherings, while throwing caution, and masks, to the wind. “The faltering economy makes it harder for authorities to enforce, and for people to accept, restrictions. It also means hospitals are less prepared should a new Covid wave arrive. Moreover, many healthcare workers have left, further weakening existing health system capacity,” he emphasized. “In short, the above mentioned factors combined could be detrimental if the new variant arrives. Currently, the only barrier to that happening seems to be divine providence. On the good side, more vaccines will be arriving in Lebanon soon. Let us hope it will not be too late,” concluded Abiad.

Geagea Blames Fuel, Food Crises on Hizbullah-FPM Rule
Naharnet/Tuesday 11/2021
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Tuesday stressed that Lebanon “will witness a new crisis every day” as long as “Hizbullah, the Free Patriotic Movement and their allies are the rulers.”“Yesterday and today it’s gasoline, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow it will be diesel, and after that it will be foodstuffs,” Geagea tweeted, referring to Lebanon’s growing economic and financial woes that are more and more affecting citizens’ daily lives. “And so on until victory,” the LF leader added sarcastically. Citizens were queuing in long lines at fuel stations on Tuesday amid a shortage crisis blamed on hoarding, smuggling and reports of an imminent lifting of fuel subsidization. The reports about the end of state subsidies have also affected the availability and prices of foodstuffs in recent days.

Army Confiscates Narcotics Manufacturing Plant in Baalbek
Naharnet/Tuesday 11/2021
The Lebanese army confiscated a drug manufacturing plant in the outskirts of the town of Bodai in Baalbek, the National News Agency reported on Tuesday. The military raided a farm in the outskirts of Bodai in west Baalbek, and confiscated amounts of drugs, machines and equipment used to produce narcotics, said NNA. Lebanon regularly carries out drug busts on its soil. In February, Lebanese customs seized five million captagon pills at Beirut's port.

Japan Prosecutors Say Ghosn Said Nissan Pay Plan Was Not Set
Associated Press/Tuesday 11/2021
Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn told prosecutors during questioning on financial misconduct charges before he fled Japan that his compensation was never decided upon, according to records presented in Tokyo District Court on Tuesday. Ghosn said the plans were just a "reference," said a defense attorney for Greg Kelly, a former Nissan executive on trial in connection with alleged underreporting of Ghosn's pay by about a billion yen ($10 million) per year. Daisuke Fujiwara, a lawyer for Kelly, read more than 200 pages documenting Ghosn's interrogations in a Tokyo jail in November and December 2018. Kelly, who is an American and a lawyer, says he is innocent and he was only trying to find legal ways to compensate Ghosn. The defense is trying to show a panel of three judges that Kelly had little to do with the complex attempts by Ghosn to calculate his future pay. Ghosn, who led Nissan for about two decades, fled to Lebanon while out on bail in late 2019. He is unlikely to stand trial since Lebanon has no extradition treaty with Japan. The prosecutors' records show Ghosn denied the payments were "delayed," asserting they were all "conditional." In one segment, Ghosn highlighted that by pointing out that if a plane he was on were to crash, his wife wouldn't get any of of the money. Kelly's name appeared in only one part of Ghosn's statements, in a proposal for post-retirement consultancy fees and a non-compete deal that would be paid in return for Ghosn agreeing to not work for a rival. Both would have been pay for services after retirement and did not have to be disclosed in Nissan Motor Co.'s annual securities reports, which are the focus of the trial. Ghosn, who has French, Brazilian and Lebanese citizenship, was sent by Renault in 1999 to salvage Nissan, which makes the Leaf electric car and Infiniti luxury models, from the brink of bankruptcy. Nissan officials have testified they sought Ghosn's arrest out of concern Renault, which owns 44% of Nissan, would gain stronger domination of the company. Kelly is due to testify later this week, his first opportunity to give his side of the story in court. Earlier in the trial he only spoke to enter his plea. A verdict is not expected for months. No other Nissan officials have been charged, apart from Ghosn. Nissan was charged as a corporate entity but is not contesting the charges. If convicted, Kelly could face up to 15 years in prison. However, University of Tokyo professor Wataru Tanaka, an expert on company law, testified during the trial as a witness for the defense that neglecting to include facts in a securities report, rather than making false statements, should be penalized by a fine, not jail time. Kelly's chief defense lawyer, Yoichi Kitamura, has told The Associated Press that he is confident about winning a verdict of innocence. If given a suspended sentence, Kelly could return home to the U.S., he said. Two Americans, Michael Taylor and his son Peter Taylor, have been extradited from the U.S. on charges of helping Ghosn escape to Lebanon. Their trial is set to start in Tokyo next month.

Lebanese Army Foils Bid to Smuggle 60 People by Sea
Associated Press/Tuesday 11/2021
The army said Monday it has foiled an attempt to smuggle 60 people, mostly from Syria, out of Lebanon, days after dozens of Syrians were caught trying to cross to Cyprus. "A naval force unit stopped a boat detected by radar 10 nautical miles off the city of Tripoli" in northern Lebanon on Sunday, it said in a statement. It said the vessel had been trying "to smuggle 60 people, 59 Syrians and one Lebanese." Their intended destination was not specified but neighboring Cyprus is the most popular sea smuggling route. On Saturday, Lebanese police said they stopped 51 Syrians who planned to make the crossing to Cyprus and had paid a smuggler $2,500 each. The army has said it also stopped another 69 Syrians in the last week of April. Security sources told AFP that the number of smuggling attempts has been on the rise since last month. Lebanon, home to more than six million people, is just 160 kilometers from Cyprus. As well as hosting more than one million refugees from war-torn Syria, Lebanon is grappling with its most severe economic crisis for decades. Tens of thousands of people, including Syrian and Palestinian refugees, have lost their jobs or seen their income slashed since 2019. Their plight has pushed many to attempt sea crossings to EU member Cyprus, which has struck a deal with Lebanon for its navy to intercept such bids. Nicosia says Cyprus has become the EU's frontline for managing migration and asylum from the eastern Mediterranean. In March, the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, Dunja Mijatovic, called on "Cypriot authorities to ensure that independent and effective investigations are carried out into allegations of pushbacks and ill-treatment (of migrants) by members of security forces."She acknowledged sea crossings and arrivals pose considerable challenges for Cyprus, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, but stressed human rights obligations must be "respected."

Hizbullah Agent Reportedly Hurt in Israeli Strike in Syria
Associated Press/Tuesday 11/2021
An Israeli helicopter gunship opened fire on Monday on a home at the edge of Syria's Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, wounding one person, Syrian state TV reported. The TV said the unidentified man, reported to be a civilian, was taken to hospital for treatment following the attack on the southern Quneitra region. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitoring group, said the targeted man works for Lebanon's Hizbullah. The attack came days after a similar attack by an Israeli helicopter on Quneitra that did not inflict casualties, according to Syrian state media. And on May 5, Israel fired missiles toward northwestern Syria, killing one person and wounding six. Israel has launched hundreds of strikes against Iran-linked military targets in Syria over the years but rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations.

Young man found hanged in his home in Nmayrieh
NNA/Tuesday 11/2021
This Tuesday morning, a man aged 30 was found hanging from the neck by a rope at his parents' house in the town of Nmayrieh. It is noteworthy that the young man had returned a year ago from Kuwait, where his family lived, and for a while suffered from depression caused mainly by his state of unemployment.
A forensic doctor was brought in to examine the body and investigate the circumstances of the accident.

Berri meets Egyptian ambassador over general situation
NNA/Tuesday 11/2021
House Speaker, Nabih Berri, on Tuesday welcomed at his Ain el-Tineh residence, Egypt's Ambassador to Lebanon, Dr. Yasser Alawi, with whom he discussed the general situation in Lebanon and the region, as well as the latest political developments. Discussions also touched on the bilateral relations between the two countries. Ambassador Alawi left Ain el-Tineh without making any statement.

Hariri receives Archbishop Najm
NNA/Tuesday 11/2021
PM-designate Saad Hariri, on Tuesday received at the “Center House” the Archbishop of the Maronite Archdiocese of Antelias, Antoine Abou Najem, with whom he discussed an array of general matters.

Diab chairs meeting of Economic and Price Control Committee
NNA/Tuesday 11/2021
Caretaker Prime Minister, Dr. Hassan Diab, on Tuesday chaired a meeting of the Economic and Price Control Committee at the Grand Serail, in the presence of Ministers Zeina Akar, Raoul Nehme, Imad Hoballah, Ramzi Musharrafieh, Hamad Hassan and Abbas Mortada, in addition to PM Advisor, Khodor Taleb.It was agreed to provide the Ministry of Economy with additional observers from the Ministry of Tourism, and to activate the role of municipalities in controlling prices.-- Caretaker PM Press Office

Druze Sheikh Aql welcomes Turkish ambassador
NNA/Tuesday 11/2021
Druze Community Sheikh Aql, Naim Hassan, on Tuesday received at the Druze Dar Al-Taifa in Beirut, the new Turkish ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Baris Ulusoy, who came on a protocol visit. Discussions reportedly focused on the general situation in Lebanon and the region, especially the current developments in Palestine. Sheikh Aql wished the Turkish ambassador success in his new diplomatic mission in the country. On the other hand, Sheikh Aql renewed his condemnation of the blatant Israeli occupation’s practices against the sanctity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and its deplorable acts against worshipers. Sheikh Hassan affirmed his standing by the Palestinian people, "who are making huge sacrifices to preserve their legitimate rights."

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 11- 12/2021

Amnesty International: Israel Using 'Unlawful' Force in Jerusalem
Agence France Presse/Tuesday 11/2021
Amnesty International said Israel is using "abusive and wanton force against largely peaceful Palestinian protesters" in east Jerusalem clashes that have wounded hundreds of demonstrators and dozens of police. Israel on Tuesday firmly defended the conduct of its officers, insisting they have responded to violent Palestinian rioters with appropriate measures. But the London-based human rights group described some of those measures as "disproportionate and unlawful", accusing security forces of "unprovoked attacks on peaceful demonstrators". Amnesty's statement came amid surging tension in Israeli-annexed Jerusalem, much of it concentrated at the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound, Islam's third holiest site. At Al-Aqsa and in clashes elsewhere in east Jerusalem, police used stun grenades, rubber bullets, tear gas and skunk water cannons in response to Palestinians who hurled stones, bottles and fireworks at officers. Amnesty said Israel has used excessive force over multiple weeks of east Jerusalem protests. In one incident, it said Israeli forces last week broke up a peaceful circle of Palestinians chanting against an attempt by Israelis to evict them from their homes in the city's Sheikh Jarrah district. Forces on horseback sprinted toward the crowd, trampling a man who was trying to run away, Amnesty said. The rights group called on the international community "to hold Israel accountable for its systemic violations".
'Gloves off'
The Israeli police did not respond to specific allegations, but told AFP in an email: "We will not allow disturbance of order while harming the fabric of life, inciting to harm police forces and violence against police officers and civilians."Police commissioner Kobi Shabtai told Israeli N12 TV on Monday that in Jerusalem in recent days "we showed too much restraint". "We are at the stage of taking off the gloves," he said. Clashes on Monday left more than 500 Palestinians wounded, while 37 officers were injured. Amid the Jerusalem violence, Palestinian militant groups in Gaza fired more than 200 rockets towards Israel, including seven directed towards Israel. Israel responded with more than 130 strikes on what it described as military targets in Gaza. Health authorities in Gaza reported at least 22 deaths, including nine children. The group Save the Children, also based in London, said it was "horrified" by the Israeli air strikes and demanded a stop to "the indiscriminate targeting and killing of civilians". Israeli army spokesman Jonathan Conricus said Israel "was doing everything possible to limit collateral damage" and he said there was no confirmation Israeli strikes had impacted Gaza civilians.

Middle East Council of Churches renews its call to lift the occupation of the Palestinian people
NNA/Tuesday 11/2021
With the escalation of confrontations in Jerusalem and the dangerous course that developments in the Holy Land are taking, the Middle East Council of Churches issued a statement in which it considered that the violent events raging in occupied Palestine, which are still increasing in intensity daily, are nothing but an inevitable result of pressure and oppression practiced continuously by the occupying powers of the land of Palestine for more than seven decades. The statement added, "We in the Middle East Council of Churches reaffirm our basic position that has not changed, which considers that lifting the occupation of the Palestinian people and enjoying their freedom, dignity and full rights are the means that lead to lasting stability and peace in the region. Violence only generates violence and hatred only leads to more hatred, racial discrimination only makes revolution, and extremism only breeds extremism, and deprivation only engenders uprising, and the only way out of this destructive cycle is to give everyone his rights, through recognition of the rights of the oppressed firstly and, secondly, by taking this recognition to the realm of implementation without procrastination or equivocation. "The MECC concluded its statement, "Therefore, we urgently demand that the “decision-makers” in the world and all the concerned forces intervene quickly and diligently in order to safeguard the rights and lift the injustice of this people, whose no one else remains under occupation in the twenty-first century and in the era of human rights. This people have the right to live a life of dignity, safety and prosperity, just like the peoples of the world!-- Middle East Council of Churches

Netanyahu Vows to Step Up Attacks on Hamas after Two Israelis Killed
Agence France Presse/Tuesday 11/2021
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Tuesday that Israel would step up attacks on Gaza's rulers Hamas after two Israeli women were killed by rockets fired from the enclave. "Since yesterday, the army has carried out hundreds of attacks against Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza... and we will further intensify the power of our attacks," Netanyahu said in a video released by his office, adding that Hamas "will be hit in ways that it does not expect." The Israeli leader was speaking after two Israeli women were killed in the southern city of Ashkelon by rockets fired from the Gaza Strip. The Magen David Adom emergency service said one of the dead women was aged in her 40s and the other in her mid-60s, adding that they were killed in separate incidents. "We deplore the death of two Israeli women and I ask you to respect the security instructions," Netanyahu added, addressing Israelis at the end of a security meeting in southern Israel. Hamas said it fired 137 rockets in five minutes on Tuesday afternoon at Ashkelon and nearby Ashdod, in simultaneous strikes aimed at thwarting Israel's air defenses. The Israeli army has stepped up air strikes on suspected Hamas and Islamic Jihad positions in Gaza, where health authorities say 26 people have been killed in the exchange of fire since Monday, including nine children. "We have eliminated commanders, hit many important targets and we have decided to attack harder and increase the pace of attacks," Netanyahu said.

Islamic Jihad Says Two Top Commanders Killed in Israeli Strikes
Agence France Presse/Tuesday 11/2021
Islamic Jihad, one of the main Palestinian armed groups in Gaza, said Tuesday that two of its commanders were killed in Israeli air strikes targeting the strip. Sources within the group said the strikes in central Gaza City, also "wounded eight people, including a woman and her two children."

26 Palestinians Killed as Israel Strikes Gaza after Hamas Rocket Barrage
Agence France Presse/Tuesday 11/2021
Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza exchanged heavy fire Tuesday, killing at least 26 Palestinians and two Israelis, in an escalation sparked by violent unrest at Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Nine children were among those killed in the blockaded Gaza Strip that is controlled by Hamas and 125 people there were wounded, local health authorities said. Two Israeli women were killed by rockets in the heavily-targeted coastal city of Ashkelon, just north of Gaza, said the emergency service Magen David Adom. The local Barzilai medical center said it was treating 70 injured. Hamas's armed wing Qassem Brigades had vowed to turn the town "to hell" and rained down an intense volley, claiming to have fired 137 rockets towards Ashkelon and nearby Ashdod within just five minutes. Loud booms again rocked the town on Tuesday, where a rocket had ripped a gaping hole into the side of an apartment block, an AFP reporter said. More than 300 rockets have been fired by Palestinian militants towards Israel since Monday, with over 90 percent intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system, army spokesman Jonathan Conricus said earlier. Israel fighter jets and attack helicopters have carried out more than 130 strikes on military targets in the enclave, said Conricus. They have killed 15 Hamas commanders, he added, while the group Islamic Jihad confirmed two of its senior figures were also killed. Conricus said Israel had no confirmation its strikes had impacted Gaza civilians, or whether the casualties there were caused by Palestinian rockets misfiring. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz authorized an army request to mobilize 5,000 reservists if necessary.
International concern
Tensions in Jerusalem have flared into the city's worst disturbances since 2017 in the days since Israeli riot police clashed with large crowds of Palestinians on the last Friday of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. Nightly unrest since then at the Al-Aqsa compound in annexed east Jerusalem has left more than 700 Palestinians wounded, drawing international calls for de-escalation and sharp rebukes from across the Muslim world. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said "all sides need to de-escalate, reduce tensions, take practical steps to calm things down". He strongly condemned the rocket attacks by Hamas, saying they "need to stop immediately".Diplomatic sources told AFP that Egypt and Qatar, who have mediated past Israeli-Hamas conflicts, were attempting to calm tensions. Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit condemned Israel's Gaza strikes as "indiscriminate and irresponsible ... and a miserable display of force at the expense of children's blood".
'You escalate, we escalate' -
Hamas had Monday warned Israel to withdraw all its forces from the mosque compound and the east Jerusalem district of Sheikh Jarrah, where looming evictions of Palestinian families have fueled angry protests. Sirens wailed across Jerusalem just after the 1500 GMT deadline set by Hamas as people in the city, including lawmakers in the Knesset legislature, fled to bunkers for the first time since the 2014 Gaza conflict. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas had "crossed a red line" by targeting Jerusalem and vowed that the Jewish state would "respond with force". Hamas' Qassam Brigades said "this is a message that the enemy must understand well: if you respond we will respond, and if you escalate we will escalate". Several properties in Israel have been damaged by rockets, including the apartment in the southern city of Ashkelon, and a house in Beit Nekofa, west of central Jerusalem.An Israeli Arab died from gunshot wounds in clashes with Israeli Jews in the central city of Lod, police said Monday, without providing details.
'Taking off gloves'
In Monday evening's Jerusalem clashes -- as during the previous nights since Friday -- Palestinians hurled rocks at Israeli officers in riot gear who fired rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas. "They shot everyone, young and old people," claimed Palestinian man Siraj, 24, about Israeli security forces in an earlier confrontation in which he suffered a spleen injury from a rubber bullet. Human rights group Amnesty International accused Israel of using "abusive and wanton force against largely peaceful Palestinian protesters", describing some of the measures as "disproportionate and unlawful". The Israeli police did not respond to specific allegations, but told AFP: "We will not allow disturbance of order while harming the fabric of life, inciting to harm police forces and violence against police officers and civilians." Police commissioner Kobi Shabtai told Israeli N12 TV on Monday that in Jerusalem in recent days "we showed too much restraint. We are at the stage of taking off the gloves."

U.N. 'Deeply Concerned' by Israeli-Palestinian Violence
Agence France Presse/Tuesday 11/2021
The United Nations rights office said Tuesday it was "deeply concerned" by the escalation of violence in the occupied Palestinian territories, east Jerusalem and Israel. The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights appealed for calm after several days of unrest. Tensions in Jerusalem have flared into the city's worst disturbances since 2017 after Israeli riot police clashed with large crowds of Palestinian worshippers on the last Friday of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. Israel and Hamas exchanged heavy fire on Tuesday, with at least 25 Palestinians killed in Gaza. "We are deeply concerned at the escalation of violence in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, and Israel in the past days," Rupert Colville, spokesman for UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet's office, told reporters in Geneva. "We condemn all violence and all incitement to violence and ethnic division and provocations." He urged Israeli security forces to allow "the right to freedoms of expression, association and assembly". "No force should be used against those exercising their rights peacefully." More than 200 rockets have been fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip towards Israel since Monday.
"The use of indiscriminate weapons, such as the rockets being fired into Israel, is strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law and must stop immediately," said Colville. Israel has responded with 130 strikes carried out by fighter jets and attack helicopters on military targets in the Gaza enclave.
"Israel must respect international humanitarian law," said Colville, adding that any attacks should be directed at military objectives, with precautions taken to avoid civilian deaths.Meanwhile the U.N. special rapporteurs on human rights in the Palestinian territories and on adequate housing, Michael Lynk and Balakrishnan Rajagopal, condemned the Israeli security forces' response to the protests. "The immediate source of the current tensions in east Jerusalem are the actions of Israeli settler organizations, whose stated aim is to turn Palestinian neighborhoods into Jewish neighborhoods," they said. "Neither short-term calm nor long-term peace will be accomplished as long as the national and individual rights of the city's Palestinian population are routinely abrogated." Special rapporteurs do not speak for the UN but report their findings to it.

Paris Urges Israel to Use 'Proportionate' Force against Palestinians
Agence France Presse/Tuesday 11/2021
France wants Israeli leaders to show a "proportionate use of force" in response to rockets fired by the Hamas Islamist movement following several nights of violence at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a government official said Tuesday.
"Quite clearly, we call for a proportionate use of force by the Israeli authorities," deputy foreign minister Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne told lawmakers in the French parliament.

U.S. Calls on Israel, Palestinians to End Civilian Deaths
Agence France Presse/Tuesday 11/2021
The United States on Tuesday urged both Israel and the Palestinians to avoid "deeply lamentable" civilian deaths after air strikes by the Jewish state in response to rocket fire in Gaza. "Israel does have a right to defend itself. At the same time reports of civilian deaths are something that we regret and would like to come to a stop," State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters. "We don't want to see provocations. The provocations we have seen have resulted in a deeply lamentable loss of life," he said. "We continue to call for calm, continue to call on all sides to de-escalate and to exercise restraint in their actions."At least 30 people including children have been killed as Israel strikes the Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire from Hamas, which said its attacks were meant to force Israeli forces out of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in tense Jerusalem. In Canada, like the United States a key ally for Israel, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the violence "terrible.""There needs to be de-escalation immediately. We need to see a cessation of violence and attacks," Trudeau told reporters. "The rocket attacks from Hamas are absolutely unacceptable. We're also gravely concerned about the settlements and the evictions of Palestinians."

Blinken Says 'All Sides Need to De-escalate' in Middle East
Agence France Presse/Tuesday 11/2021
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday urged both Israel and the Palestinians to lower tensions and urged an immediate end to rocket fire by Hamas. "All sides need to de-escalate, reduce tensions, take practical steps to calm things down," Blinken said as he met his Jordanian counterpart in Washington. Blinken strongly condemned rocket fire by Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip, and backed Israel's right to respond. The rocket attacks "need to stop immediately," Blinken said. He also praised steps taken by Israel over the past day partly in response to concerns led by the United states, including rerouting a flashpoint parade meant to celebrate Israel's capture of east Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967. Blinken also pointed to the postponement of a decision on the eviction of Palestinian families in Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, an immediate trigger for the violence that has left hundreds injured in the holy city. "But it's imperative for all sides to take steps to de-escalate the situation," Blinken said. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said that Jerusalem was a "red line" for the kingdom, which has a peace treaty with Israel and maintains a custodial role in the Al-Aqsa compound, known to Muslims as Al-Haram al-Sharif. "Our focus right now is on ensuring that the escalation stops, and for that to happen we believe that all illegal, provocative measures against the peoples of Sheikh Jarrah or in terms of violations into al-Haram must stop," Safadi said.

Israel's Ben Gurion Airport Halts Flights over Gaza Rockets
Agence France Presse/Tuesday 11/2021
Israel's Ben Gurion international airport suspended air traffic on Tuesday following a massive barrage of rockets launched towards nearby Tel Aviv by Hamas militants in Gaza, the civil aviation authority said. "During the massive rocket fire... flights were stopped to protect the country's skies," aviation authority spokesman Ofer Lefler told AFP.

Hamas Fires '130 Rockets' at Tel Aviv after Israeli Strike Destroys Gaza Tower
Agence France Presse/Tuesday 11/2021
Hamas militants said they had fired 130 rockets towards Tel Aviv on Tuesday, unleashing a massive barrage on Israel's economic hub, in retaliation for an Israeli strike on 12-story tower near Gaza's coast. Air raid sirens rang out across the Tel Aviv area and into central Israel, AFP reporters and the Israeli army said. There was no immediate indication on fatalities, or how many of the rockets were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome air defense system. Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld told AFP that an empty bus had been hit in Holon, south of Tel Aviv, and that a rocket had crashed in Rishon Letzion in central Israel. Israel's Magen David Adom rescue agency said three people in Holon had been hospitalized following the strikes. They included a five-year-old girl, as well as two women, one 50 and one 30. The tower struck earlier in Gaza was described by Hamas as a residential building. It also houses offices of several Hamas officials, AFP reporters said. Hamas, had warned it would retaliate over the strike, before confirming it had launched an attack on "Tel Aviv and its suburbs with 130 missiles."The dramatic escalation between Israel and Palestinian militant groups in Gaza, especially Hamas and Islamic Jihad, was sparked by unrest in Jerusalem, especially at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, Islam's third holiest site. Hamas on Monday launched rockets towards Jerusalem, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared as a "red line."He has said Israel would intensify its air campaign in Gaza.

Qatar's Emir Visits Saudi Arabia as Rift Eases
Agence France Presse
Qatar's ruler Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani landed in Saudi Arabia for talks Monday, in his second visit since the countries re-established relations in January following a bitter three-year feud. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, received Sheikh Tamim in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, according to images and a statement published by Saudi state media. The visit, which came at the invitation of Saudi Arabia's King Salman, was aimed at discussing bilateral relations and other issues of "common interest", the official Qatar News Agency said. Saudi Arabia and its allies broke off ties with Qatar in June 2017 over claims it was too close to Iran and backed radical Islamist groups, allegations Qatar has always denied. But in January of this year, the boycotting countries agreed to restore ties with Qatar following a flurry of diplomatic activity by the administration of former US president Donald Trump. Sheikh Tamim last travelled to the kingdom in January for a summit hosted by Prince Mohammed in the desert city of Al-Ula, which led to Doha being readmitted to the regional fold. Since the reconciliation there have been cautious steps towards normality, including the resumption of air travel between the former adversaries and the reopening of Qatar's sole land border with Saudi Arabia.

Iran Says Warned U.S. Navy over 'Unprofessional Behaviour'
Agence France Presse/Tuesday 11/2021
Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Tuesday they warned US vessels after Washington said warning shots were fired near Iranian attack boats, the latest confrontation between the rivals in the Gulf. The US had earlier said the warning shots were fired after more than a dozen Iranian fast attack boats buzzed close to a US Navy submarine and escort ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday. The Revolutionary Guards' navy confirmed it had encountered seven US vessels in the incident, but said it warned them "while maintaining the legal distance ... against their risky and unprofessional behaviour, after which they continued on their way". It said in a statement that the US behaviour included "flying helicopters, firing flares, and aimless, unnecessary and provocative shooting". The Guards said its navy was conducting "routine missions in the territorial waters" of Iran, but did not specify whether the American vessels had entered the Islamic republic's waters. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby had said earlier that 13 Guards' boats approached the seven US vessels at high speeds, closing within 140 metres (150 yards) before one of the US vessels fired 30 shots in two volleys, until they moved away.
Risk of 'miscalculation'
"Sadly harassment by the IRGC-N is not a new phenomenon," said Kirby, referring to the Guards' navy. "It's unsafe, it's unprofessional. It's the kind of activity that can lead to somebody getting hurt, and can lead to a real miscalculation there in the region," Kirby added. Kirby pointed out that the Iranian actions took place in the Strait of Hormuz, where ships have little room to move. "It's an international waterway and of course when you're in the strait, there are certain limits to your ability to manuever," he said. In response, the Guards called on Washington to avoid "false narratives", and accused it of being "the centre of instability, threat and insecurity in the region". The encounter was the second such incident in two weeks, according to the US Navy. In late April, three Iranian fast inshore attack craft provoked warning shots when they came close to two US vessels in international waters in the northern part of the Gulf, it said. And in early April four Guard vessels, three fast attack craft and a large Harth 55 catamaran similarly came close to two US Coast Guard patrol ships, crossing their bows while ignoring warnings. No shots were fired in that encounter. In its statement, the Guards' navy said its forces will "calmly and confidently follow their missions in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf" and are ready to respond to "any miscalculation" by the US. The confrontations comes amid talks in Vienna between Iran and major powers on reviving a landmark 2015 nuclear deal abandoned three years later by then US president Donald Trump.

Iran Candidates Register for Presidential Election
Agence France Presse/Tuesday 11/2021
Iran on Tuesday opened registration for candidates hoping to succeed President Hassan Rouhani, who will step down following the June 18 elections after serving the maximum two consecutive terms allowed. The five-day registration period at the interior ministry ends on Saturday, with the names of candidates then handed to the conservative-dominated Guardian Council for vetting. More than 20 public figures have officially announced their intention to run, with the final list of those qualified due on May 26-27, the interior ministry said. Former Revolutionary Guards Corps' official Saeed Mohammad, a general and an advisor to Guards commander Major General Hossein Salami, was one of the first to submit his name Tuesday. Mohammad, 53, who headed the Guards' construction and engineering arm for over two years, resigned last in March to run. Another was Mohammad Hassan Nami, an army general who was briefly telecoms minister under former ultra-conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, state news agency IRNA said. According to the Hamshahri daily newspaper, Nami is a former military attache to North Korea, and also holds a doctorate in "public management" from Pyongyang's Kim Il-sung University. Several top political figures are seen as possible presidential hopefuls, but are yet to declare whether they will run. They include former parliament speaker Ali Larijani, judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. The country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has in recent months urged for high turnout, expressing hope that this would encourage the emergence of new young leaders, as the generation who oversaw the country's 1979 revolution is ageing. This year's election is also expected to feature a string of military figures, stirring unease over a possible militarisation of the Islamic republic's politics. The registration process comes as Iran and world powers are engaged in talks to revive a 2015 nuclear accord, from which the US withdrew unilaterally in 2018, reimposing crippling sanctions.

Putin Submits to Parliament Bill on Exiting Open Skies Treaty
Agence France Presse/Tuesday 11/2021
Russian President Vladimir Putin has submitted to parliament draft legislation that would see the country withdraw from the Open Skies treaty after Washington quit the key post-Cold War defence accord last year. Moscow announced in mid-January it would withdraw from the treaty, which allows signatories to carry out unarmed surveillance flights over each other's territories. It cited a "lack of progress" on maintaining the functioning of the treaty after the United States withdrew from it last year. A government database showed on Tuesday that Putin has submitted the bill exiting the treaty to parliament. A note accompanying it said the treaty had helped "to significantly strengthen trust in the defence sphere", adding that the US withdrawal "upset the balance of interests" of signatory states. "Serious damage has been dealt to the observance of the treaty and its role in strengthening trust and transparency," the note also said, adding that as a result Russia's national security was under threat. The agreement was signed soon after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1992 and came into force in 2002. The treaty allowed its nearly three dozen signatories to carry out short-notice flights over one another's territory to monitor potential military operations. Members include countries across Europe, the former Soviet Union and Canada. Moscow and Washington had long accused each other of breaching the terms of the agreement, and then-US president Donald Trump formally pulled the US out last November. The pact also allows its members to request copies of images taken during surveillance flights carried out by other members. The country under surveillance is given 72-hours' warning ahead of a flight and 24-hours' notice of the flight path, to which it can suggest modifications. The Open Skies pact is one of several major treaties Washington abandoned under Trump. Washington pulled out from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia, further straining already tense relations between Moscow and Washington that in recent years have reached their lowest point since the end of the Cold War. In February, Trump's successor Joe Biden extended the New START nuclear treaty -- the last remaining arms reduction pact between the former Cold War rivals -- by five years.

At Least Nine Dead in School Shooting in Central Russia
Agence France Presse/Tuesday 11/2021
At least nine people were killed after shooting broke out Tuesday at a high school in the central Russian city of Kazan, local news agencies reported. Citing local sources, agencies reported that two people had opened fire at School No. 175 in Kazan, the capital of Russia's republic of Tatarstan.
Interfax reported that one of the attackers, a 17-year-old, had been detained but that a second assailant was still inside the school building. It said eight students and one teacher had been killed and that police had sealed off the fourth floor of the school and were attempting to detain the second attacker.
News agency TASS also reported nine dead and said 10 people had been injured, including several children. Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov had arrived at the scene, agencies reported. Images broadcast on state television from the scene showed dozens of people outside the school with fire services and police vehicles lining nearby streets. "I was in class, I first heard an explosion, then gunshots," TASS quoted a teacher as saying. Another source cited by the RIA Novosti agency said they had heard an explosion and could see smoke rising from the building.
Tight school security
Russia has relatively few school shootings due to normally tight security in education facilities and the difficulty of buying firearms legally, although it is possible to register hunting rifles. In November 2019, a 19-year-old student in the far eastern town of Blagoveshchensk opened fire in his college, killing one classmate and injuring three other people before shooting himself dead. In October 2018, a teenage gunman killed 20 people at the Kerch technical college in Crimea, the peninsula Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The 18-year-old attacker, who also set off explosives in one of the school's buildings, shot himself dead at the site. He was shown in camera footage wearing a similar T-shirt to Eric Harris, one of the killers in the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in the US, which left 13 people dead. Russian President Vladimir Putin at the time blamed the attack on "globalisation" and online communities dedicated to American school shootings which promoted "fake heroes". The Crimea shooter, Vladislav Roslyakov, was able to legally obtain a gun licence after undergoing marksmanship training and being examined by a psychiatrist. The shooting led to calls for tighter gun control in Russia. The country's FSB security service says it has prevented dozens of armed attacks on schools in recent years. In February last year the FSB said it had detained two teenagers on suspicion of plotting an attack on a school in the city of Saratov with weapons and homemade explosives.

Machnouk picks up regional signals, prepares for the post-Hariri era
The Arab Weekly/May 11/2021
The announcement of the formation of the “Third Independence Movement” threatens the Future Movement and its Sunni constituency.
BEIRUT- Lebanese political sources believe that Saudi Arabia’s changed view of Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri is behind former interior minister Nohad el-Machnouk’s call for Hariri to apologise for not being able to form a Lebanese government. The sources revealed that Machnouk’s words are based on strong information that Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman has now taken an unfavourable position towards Hariri and that he made his view known to an Arab official he met about a month ago in Riyadh. According to Lebanese political sources, Machnouk believes that France and Russia are now withdrawing their support for Hariri’s formation of a government of “specialists”.
In this regard, the sources indicated that Russia does not want to anger Hezbollah, which is not about to break its alliance with the President of the Republic, Michel Aoun and Gebran Bassil, as they provide the needed cover for Hezbollah’s continued possession of weapons outside state control.
They add that the same applies, to some extent, to France, which, despite its strong dissatisfaction with the Aoun-Bassil duo, cannot ignore the positions of Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsors and does not want to cut communication channels with them. The sources justified Machnouk’s call for Hariri to relinquish his cabinet formation mandate by the realities on the ground. They indicate that Lebanon is heading towards a complete collapse and that it is better for Hariri not to put himself in a position where he is held responsible for the disaster that has befallen Lebanon.
The sources concluded that the former interior minister, who still represents Beirut in the Lebanese parliament, feels that the conditions are no longer suitable for the formation of a new government headed by Hariri.
They added that the opinion of the former minister, who worked for a long time with Rafik Hariri, is that Saad Hariri now faces a dead end that makes apologising a serious option in light of the insistence of the president and his son-in-law on impossible conditions that prevent him from forming a government.
Machnouk said in press statements that “if Hariri does not apologise, we will suffer for a very long time from this matter, but if he apologises, the problem will be even greater, because his apology at this stage would constitute a great shock to a segment of Lebanese society, especially his father’s supporters.”
Machnouk considered that “the political Hariri trend is afflicted with major flaws and failures after the mistake of electing Michel Aoun as president of the republic,” differently from “the nationalist Hariri trend (…) for which Rafik Hariri fought.”
Lebanese observers believe that the former interior minister picked up regional signals, especially from Saudi Arabia, pointing to the end of the bet on Hariri as a figure capable of confronting the growing influence of Hezbollah and behind it, that of Iran. Hariri has long sought to present himself as an alternative capable of playing this role. In strong statements he made in the past few years always he depicted himself as being in the opposite camp of the Shia party.
They believe that Saudi Arabia’s dissatisfaction with Hariri will determine his future position, whether on the Lebanese scene, especially within the Sunni camp, or at the regional level. They note that the regional countries that support Hariri do so within the limits of the Saudi position.
Besides the possible loss of endorsement from Saudi Arabia, although known for its steady support for the Hariri faction, Saad Hariri is also no longer France’s favourite even though Paris had in the past stood behind tasking him anew with forming the government. This change of heart is no longer a secret, especially after published reports regarding the cold atmosphere that characterised his meeting with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
Hariri complained that Le Drian went to visit President Michel Aoun, as well as Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, while he himself had to go to the French embassy to meet the foreign minister.
It is clear that the parity established by Paris between the different Lebanese parties has replaced its favourable treatment of Hariri. This could not have happened if the French had not realised that Riyadh was not betting on Hariri anymore. This position was reflected in Le Drian’s statements before and after his last visit to Beirut. Machnouk has translated this change of mood in his new political position.
Machnouk showed in his statements that he was not satisfied with the experience of the previous governments led by Hariri and with the settlement that was concluded with the president of the republic nor with how Hariri’s presence at the head of the previous government turned into a cover serving the agendas of others at the expense of the interests of the Sunnis whom Hariri was supposed to defend.
Machnouk believes that Hariri went too far in his moves to appease Hezbollah and considered his personal interests by staying in power rather than the regional and international position towards the Shia party, which was one of the reasons for the shift in the Saudi position towards him.
Machnouk said, “The political management of the settlement during the first three years encouraged the ambitions of Aoun and Bassil and made them more eager to go beyond Taif, bypass the constitution and bring the country to a dead end, of course with major support form Hezbollah.”
He was keen to emphasise that his disagreement with Hariri is not personal, but rather a political difference, which explains his talk about forming a political front that will compete with the Future Movement.
He announced that “a group of comrades and friends, some of them old supporters of Rafik Hariri, are working to create a new front with the name of the Third Independence Movement, in order to liberate Lebanese decisions from the yoke of Iranian political occupation.”
The establishment of this front, if it were to take place, would be at the expense of the Future Movement, which is facing difficult conditions that have led to its loss of influence within the Sunni constituency itself, as well as in its national support base. The Future Movement turned into a party serving Hariri’s person more than an influential party within the internal balances of Lebanon.
The movement has also lost its ability to co-opt Sunni figures who worked in previous governments and were close to the party during the period of Rafik Hariri. Among these figures are former prime ministers who established their own club.
Those familiar with the controversy within the Future Movement’s circle of influence say that it was turned into a ruling party whose mission is to provide a political constituency for Saad Hariri, especially in the period following the conclusion of the settlement with the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, Gebran Bassil and leading to the election of Aoun as president of the republic.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 11- 12/2021

They Are Burning Us Alive!” Say Sinai’s Coptic Christians
Raymond Ibrahim/Coptic Solidarity/May 11/2021
ريموند إبراهيم/اقباط سيناء المصرية: يحرقوننا ونحن أحياء
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The recent execution of a Coptic Christian man in the Sinai is a reminder that the peninsula is a hotbed of wanton, jihadi terrorism in dire need of a crackdown.
Although the murder of 62-year-old Nabil H. Salama was videotaped in an Islamic State propaganda video—meaning it received some media attention in the West—much lesser known is that the Muslim terrorists have been terrorozing, massacring, and displacing the small Coptic community for years in the Sinai.
Early 2017 probably saw the worst atrocities. Then, the Islamic State in Sinai had released a video promising more attacks on the “worshipers of the cross,” a reference to the Copts of Egypt; the terrorists also referred to the Copts as their “favorite prey” and the “infidels who are empowering the West against Muslim nations.”
Thereafter followed a massive “jihad” on the Copts; the following are some of the more notable examples, all occurring in early 2017, mostly in al-Arish, Sinai:
A 65-year-old Christian man was shot in the head and killed; the Copt’s 45-year-old son was then abducted and tortured by the Muslim terrorists; they then burned him alive and dumped his charred remains near a schoolyard (image here).
A 35-year-old Christian was in his small shop working with his wife and young son when three masked men walked in, opened fire on and killed him. The Muslim murderers then sat around his shop table, eating chips and drinking soda, while the slain Copt lay in a pool of blood before his terrified wife and child.
A 57-year-old Christian laborer was shot and killed as he tried to fight off masked men trying to kidnap his young son from off a crowded street in broad daylight. After murdering the Coptic father, they seized his young son and took him to an unknown location.
A 45-year-old Christian schoolteacher was moonlighting at his shoe store with his wife, when masked men walked in the crowded shop and shot him dead.
A 40-year-old Coptic medical doctor was killed by masked men who, after forcing him to stop his car, opened fire on and killed him. He too left a widow and two children.
A group of armed Muslims attacked St. George, a Coptic Christian church in the Sinai on Sunday 15, 2017, leaving seven—including a young child—dead, and 15, mostly women and children, wounded.
A Christian father and his two sons were abducted; their decapitated bodies were later found
As a result of these 2017 slayings and threats of more to come, nearly 350 Christians living in al-Arish, Sinai, fled their homes, with nothing but their clothes on their backs and their children in their hands. Most had congregated in a Coptic church compound in neighboring Ismailia by the Suez Canal.
In a video of these destitute Copts, one man was heard saying “They are burning us alive! They seek to exterminate Christians altogether! Where’s the [Egyptian] military?” Another Coptic woman yells at the camera,
Tell the whole world, look—we’ve left our homes, and why? Because they kill our children, they kill our women, they kill our innocent people! Why? Our children are terrified to go to schools. Why? Why all this injustice?! Why doesn’t the president move and do something for us? We can’t even answer our doors without being terrified!
Although 2017 witnessed this uptick of attacks on Copts, they had been attacked before and after.
Back in 2012, and in response to what Islamists perceived as Christian support for the popular revolts against then president Muhammad Morsi—Sinai’s Copts were heavily plummeted. Even though Muslim support for Sisi dwarfed Christian support, as Christians make only ten percent of Egypt, only they—the “uppity infidels”—were targeted for punishment: one priest, Fr. Mina Cherubim, was shot dead in front of his church; a 65-year- old Christian man was beheaded; several other Christians, including youths, were kidnapped, held for ransom, and later executed when the exorbitant ransoms could not be met. Two churches were attacked, one burned. Hundreds of other Christians were displaced.
It should not be imagined that Sinai Christians are only murdered when the jihadis have a special reason (such as 2012’s “revenge” spree against pro-Sisi Christians, or 2017’s ISIS video inciting violence against Copts). For instance, In January 2018, three masked gunmen targeted and killed a 27-year-old man after identifying him as a Christian by the cross tattoo on his wrist. According to his older brother, the siblings were walking home after work when the men “approached us and asked Bassem to show them the wrist of his right hand, and when they saw the tattoo of the cross, they asked him: ‘Are you Christian?’ Bassem answered ‘Yes, I am Christian,’ and repeated that again in a loud voice…. [T]hen they shot Bassem in the head. I could not believe what happened to my brother. He fell on the ground in front of me and I was unable to do anything….”
Similarly, in June 2016, Coptic priest, Fr. Raphael Moussa, 46, was randomly shot dead in “a hail of bullets” outside the Church of the Martyr of St George in Sinai. And in January 2015, masked gunmen stormed the home of a Christian man residing in al-Arish. After robbing him and his family at gunpoint, they shot him several times in the head, instantly killing him. According to the slain man’s wife, her husband was murdered “only because he was a Copt.” She pointed out that the masked intruders robbed everything in sight—including the money in his pockets, the jewelry she was wearing, her handbag, cell phones, and even a Bible. Then, after stealing everything available, and for no practical purpose, they shot her husband dead. A month later, another Christian man in al-Arish was randomly and fatally shot.
Nor is it just the “terrorists” who despise the Copts. In 2019, after an ISIS attack in Sinai left eight Egypt security officers dead, the government responded by honoring the slain—except for one, a Christian. Although seven schools were named after the seven slain Muslim officers, authorities denied this same honor to the sole Christian, Abanoub Nageh, citing “severe objections by the village Muslims that a school would bear such a flagrantly Coptic name as Abanoub.”
All of this is a reminder that the Sinai is a hotbed of Islamic terrorism, where ISIS is alive and well. Moreover, it is well to remember that those who butcher Coptic Christians for no other reason than being “infidels” would butcher any non-Muslim, should the opportunity ever present itself.

The Realignment …On Iran, Biden is finishing what Obama started. And his top advisers are all on board.
Michael Doran and Tony Badran/The Tablet Magazine/May 11/2021
مايكل دوران وطوني بدران/مجلة التابلت/إعادة الاصطفاف ... فيما يتعلق بإيران، بايدن ينهي ما بدأه أوباما وكبار مستشاريه هم جميعاً في مواقع القرار
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On Sunday, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan phoned his Israeli counterpart and turned back the hands of time. According to the American readout of the conversation, Sullivan called “to express the United States’ serious concerns” about two things: the pending eviction, by court order, of a number of Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem, and the weekend’s violent clashes on the Temple Mount between Israeli police and Palestinian rioters. The Biden administration, in other words, publicly asserted an American national interest in preventing the Sheikh Jarrah evictions, regardless of the dictates of Israeli law—just as Hamas was sending rockets and incendiary devices into Israel with the same message. This conscious effort to put “daylight” between the United States and Israel marked a clear return to the approach of President Barack Obama.
Sullivan’s call invites us to reopen an unresolved debate that began even before President Joe Biden took the oath of office. Is the new president forging his own path in the Middle East, or is he following in the footsteps of Obama? Until now, those who feared that his presidency might become the third term of Obama fixed their wary eyes on Robert Malley, the president’s choice as Iran envoy. When serving in the Obama White House, Malley helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal, which sought accommodations with Tehran that came at the expense of America’s allies in the Middle East. In a revealing Foreign Affairs article, written in 2019, Malley expressed regret that Obama failed to arrive at more such accommodations. The direction of Obama’s policy was praiseworthy, Malley wrote, but his “moderation” was the enemy of his project. Being “a gradualist,” he presided over “an experiment that got suspended halfway through.”
Malley, the article leads one to assume, is now advising Biden to go all the way—and fast. But surely it is the president, not his Iran envoy, who determines the direction and pace of policy. Over the course of a career in Washington spanning nearly half a century, Biden has never cut a radical profile. Nor have Sullivan or Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The presence of this pair at Biden’s side signaled to many that Malley would not drive Iran policy. Shortly after the election, a veteran Washington insider noted to a journalist that “Blinken and Sullivan are certainly from the more moderate wing of the party, and that is reassuring.”
At his Senate confirmation hearing in January, Blinken continued to reassure by expressing his intention to fix the defects of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the Iran nuclear deal is known. The following month, Foreign Policy reported that a split had opened up inside the government, with Sullivan and Blinken fulfilling the hopes placed on them. When Malley argued in favor of giving “inducements” to Iran to convince it to return quickly to the JCPOA, Sullivan and Blinken “dominated the discussion” by “toeing a harder line.”
Over the past month, that line became even harder—as in harder to see. On April 2, Malley gave an interview to PBS that raised eyebrows in Jerusalem, Riyadh, and in Congress. Ahead of nuclear talks in Vienna, where the Europeans were about to host indirect negotiations between Biden officials and Iranian representatives about resurrecting the JCPOA, Malley expressed an eagerness to lift American sanctions on Iran and ensure “that Iran enjoys the benefits that it was supposed to enjoy under the deal.” About the interview, an anonymous senior Israeli official said, “If this is American policy, we are concerned.”
Israeli intelligence operatives put an exclamation point on that sentence when they (it seems clear) sabotaged a power generator at the Iranian nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz. While damaging Iran’s nuclear program, the operation also signaled Israeli opposition to the American position in the Vienna talks, now underway.
The alarm in Jerusalem is justified, if the May 1 statement by Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s lead negotiator in Vienna, is anything to go by. The American negotiators, he claimed, had already agreed in principle to remove sanctions on Iran’s energy sector, automotive industry, financial services, banking industry, and ports—to eliminate, in other words, all of the most significant economic sanctions ever imposed on Iran. Recent statements from Biden administration officials give us no reason to disbelieve Araghchi, and the smart money is now on a full resurrection of the JCPOA in relatively short order.
But even the Israelis have yet to absorb the full scope and magnitude of Biden’s accommodation of Iran. The problem is not that Sullivan and Blinken are failing to restrain Malley, but that they are marching in lockstep with him. A consensus reigns inside the administration, not just on the JCPOA but on every big question of Middle East strategy: Everyone from the president on down agrees about the need to complete what Obama started—which means that the worst is yet to come.
If the control that Obama’s project exercises over every mind in the Biden administration is not already obvious, it is because confusion still reigns about the project’s true nature. Doubt us? Then take the following one-question quiz: To what, precisely, was Robert Malley referring when he spoke of Obama’s half-completed “experiment”?
If you answered “the JCPOA,” you got it wrong.
If you said “improving relations with Iran,” you scored much higher, but you still failed.
The president’s “ultimate goal,” Malley wrote, was “to help the [Middle East] find a more stable balance of power that would make it less dependent on direct U.S. interference or protection.” That is a roundabout way of saying that Obama dreamed of a new Middle Eastern order—one that relies more on partnership with Iran.
And the dream lives on. In May 2020, six months after Malley penned his Foreign Affairs essay, Jake Sullivan, writing as an adviser to Biden’s presidential campaign, co-authored his own article laying out a Middle East strategy. The goal, he explained, is to be “less ambitious” militarily, “but more ambitious in using U.S. leverage and diplomacy to press for a de-escalation in tensions and eventually a new modus vivendi among the key regional actors.” If we substitute the word “balance” for “modus vivendi,” and if we recognize that “de-escalation” and “diplomacy” require cooperation with Iran, then Sullivan’s vision is identical to Obama’s “ultimate goal” as described by Malley. Sullivan emphasized that equivalence when he defined the objective of his plan as “changing the United States’ role in a regional order it helped create.”
This project to create a new Middle Eastern order, which now spans two presidential administrations, deserves a name. The “Obama-Biden-Malley-Blinken-Sullivan initiative” is quite a mouthful. Instead, we hereby dub it “the Realignment.” That it should fall to us, and at this late date, to name a project on which many talented people have been working for the better part of a decade is more than a little odd. Typically, presidents launch initiatives as grand as this one with a major address, and they further embroider their vision with dozens of smaller speeches and interviews. One searches in vain for Obama’s speech, “A New Order in the Middle East.”
Obama, it seems clear, felt his project would advance best with stealth and misdirection, not aggressive salesmanship. Biden, while keeping Obama’s second-term foreign policy team nearly intact, is using the same playbook. He and his aides recognize that confusion about the “ultimate goal” makes achieving it easier. Indeed, confusion is the Realignment’s best friend.
“Calculated to confuse” would make a fitting epitaph for the JCPOA—if ever it were to shuffle off this mortal coil. At 159 pages, containing five annexes, and replete with secret side deals, it packed into one binder enough smoke and mirrors to keep the American public confused for the past six years. Although the JCPOA is only one component of Obama’s grand project, its role is indispensable.
Let’s start with what the JCPOA does not do. Contrary to what its architects have claimed since 2015, the JCPOA does not block all the pathways to an Iranian nuclear weapon. How could it? The deal’s so-called “sunset provisions”—the clauses that eliminate all meaningful restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program—will all have taken effect in less than a decade; some of the most significant restrictions will disappear by 2025. By 2031, the Islamic Republic will have, with international protection and assistance, an unfettered nuclear weapons program resting on an industrial-scale enrichment capability. On the basis of this fact alone, the best one can possibly say about the deal is that it buys a decade of freedom from Iranian nuclear extortion.
But even that modest claim does not withstand scrutiny. The deal permits a robust research and development program, and it does not destroy facilities (such as the fortified bunker in the mountains at Fordow) that are indisputably part of a military, not a civilian, nuclear program. In other words, Iran is pursuing its nuclear weapons ambitions even during this period of supposed restrictions, and its program is continuing, as any newspaper reader can see, to serve as a tool of extortion.
So blatant are the deal’s failings that Biden officials do not deny the problem. Instead, they pretend to have a fix. Their plan? A “follow-on accord.” The JCPOA, they claim, is stage one in a multistage process, like a Silicon Valley product awaiting an upgrade.
It was Sullivan, in his Foreign Affairs article, who first floated the “follow-on” idea. Blinken then promised, at both his Senate confirmation hearing in January and a press conference on his first day on the job, to work for a “longer and stronger agreement.”
“Lengthen and Strengthen with Sullivan and Blinken!” would make for a catchy slogan if JCPOA 2.0 actually had a chance in reality. But the Biden administration insists it will not raise the idea of a longer and stronger agreement until after the full restoration of JCPOA 1.0. However, as we noted, JCPOA 1.0 quickly expunges all significant limitations on Iran’s nuclear program—permanently, and with an international seal of approval. By giving Tehran everything it ever wanted up front, JCPOA 1.0 obviates JCPOA 2.0.
Sullivan and Blinken profess to recognize the hideous flaws of the JCPOA, even as they sweat and toil to resurrect it from the tomb where Trump had buried it. The comfort they offered worried minds only increased when, according to the February Foreign Policy report, they overruled Malley, refusing Iran’s demand that the United States lift all sanctions as a precondition for returning to the JCPOA. The men of understanding, we were led to believe, were also men with backbone.
But that report merely deflected watchful eyes from the real story: the bargaining between Washington and Tehran that started the minute the administration took office. Even before the Vienna negotiations began in April, messages were winging their way from Tehran to Washington, through intermediaries who interceded with ideas about how the United States could relax sanctions without formally lifting them.
As a result, Sullivan and Blinken delivered inducements to Tehran—and lots of them. To give just a few examples: The Biden administration dropped American objections to a $5 billion International Monetary Fund loan to Iran. It rescinded the Trump-era policy at the United Nations, which had triggered the so-called snapback mechanism—a move to reimpose international sanctions on Iran for its violation of the deal. It released frozen Iranian oil funds in South Korea, Iraq, and Oman. These steps portended the imminent end of the sanctions regime, thus encouraging the Chinese to buy Iranian oil at a much higher rate than at any time since 2017. Against this background came Malley’s April 2 interview on PBS, in which he expressed an eagerness to lift all sanctions as quickly as possible.
The administration’s enthusiasm for maximum accommodation of Iran came as a shock to many observers, among them Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, who released a statement accusing the administration of breaking its word. Inhofe, the Israelis, and countless others had mistaken Blinken’s rhetoric for an actual plan to use the leverage built up by Trump to “fix” the nuclear deal.
To be fair, Blinken always said the administration intended to return to the JCPOA. About that, neither he nor Sullivan nor any other administration official ever lied. But they did strategically encourage people to believe things they knew were not, and never would be, true.
Their deceptions have gone far beyond narrow nuclear questions. Contrary to the claims of the administration, the JCPOA ends all of the most damaging sanctions on Iran—nuclear and nonnuclear alike. Thanks to one of its early sunset clauses, the JCPOA already ended an international ban on conventional arms sales to Iran, thus offering Tehran avenues for expanding its defense cooperation with Russia and China. As the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) will grow richer from oil sales, its international partnerships will also grow stronger. The network of militias surrounding Israel and America’s Arab allies will expand, and their sting, delivered by precision-guided weaponry, will become more venomous. Compounded by the backing of powerful friends like Russia and China, the difficulty of containing Iran’s regional project will increase. This analysis is not a theory; it is common sense.
The deceptions surrounding the JCPOA have a clear purpose: to make the administration appear supportive of containment when, in fact, it is ending it. But why are officials like Blinken and Sullivan so comfortable with such duplicity? Answering this question requires entering the Realignment mentality. The Foreign Affairs articles certainly offer one way in, but the most direct route is through the mind of Barack Obama, the author of the policy that Blinken and Sullivan are glossing.
The deceptions surrounding the JCPOA have a clear purpose: to make the administration appear supportive of containment when, in fact, it is ending it.
The Realignment mentality fully crystalized on Aug. 31, 2013, the day Obama erased his red line on Syria’s use of chemical weapons. Obama first drew the red line for U.S. military action in the summer of 2012, after receiving reports indicating that Syrian dictator Bashar Assad was either using or preparing to use chemical weapons against civilians. Some of Obama’s advisers urged him, in response, to increase support for the rebels seeking to overthrow Assad. Instead, Obama drew his red line, hoping that Moscow and Tehran would restrain Assad and the White House would not be forced to take action. But almost exactly one year later, Assad dashed Obama’s hopes with a sarin gas attack that killed hundreds of civilians, perhaps over a thousand.
Nevertheless, Obama was as determined as ever to prevent American intervention in Syria—still with the assistance of Moscow and Tehran. What if, he asked himself, the United States were able to work in greater partnership with Russia and Iran to stabilize not just Syria but other trouble spots too? After all, a tacit U.S. arrangement with Iran already existed in Iraq, based on a supposed mutual hostility to Sunni jihadism. Couldn’t that model be expanded to cover the entire Middle East? A partnership with Russia and Iran could stabilize this vexed region. An attack on Syria, however, would alienate both Moscow and Tehran, damaging Obama’s dream of a new regional order.
As the American military readied a strike on Assad, Obama searched for a pretext to call it off. He found it by suddenly remembering his constitutional duty to seek congressional authorization for military operations. Republicans in Congress, Obama knew, would refuse to authorize military action, making them responsible for erasing his red line. The Republicans’ refusal to strike, Obama told Ben Rhodes, an aide and member of his inner circle, “will drive a stake through the heart of neoconservatism—everyone will see they have no votes.”
Obama had zero interest in weakening the Russian-Iranian entente. Instead, he sought to hobble the “correlation of forces” (to use the Soviet terminology) that he believed was boxing him in. Those forces included, in addition to a variety of groups in American domestic politics, traditional allies in the Middle East—Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey—all of whom were alarmed, each for its own reasons, by the rising power of the Russian-Iranian entente.
For his part, Russian leader Vladimir Putin understood Obama’s dilemma. He quickly offered a fig leaf that Obama readily accepted. Together, the two pretended to strip Assad of his chemical weapons. We say “pretended,” because the joint Russian-American initiative was a Potemkin facade designed to put an honorable face on Obama’s retreat. In return for the prize of American abstention from Syria, Putin was more than happy to destroy some of Assad’s chemical weapons.
But only some. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the group that carried out the joint American-Russian policy, only destroyed the chemical weapons that Assad officially declared. Of course, he didn’t declare everything, a fact that became irrefutable in April 2017, when Assad conducted another sarin gas attack, this time killing almost 100 people.
For Obama, however, deterring Assad was always a secondary concern. He had now achieved what he saw as the biggest prize of all, namely, opening a path to a strategic accommodation with Iran, Russia’s ally in Syria. “If the U.S. had intervened more forcefully in Syria,” Rhodes told a reporter at the end of the Obama presidency, “it would have dominated Obama’s second term and the JCPOA would have been impossible to achieve.”
With the Syria example fixed in our minds, we are finally in a position to define what the JCPOA truly is rather than what it is not. As understood by its architects, the deal is two things at once. First, it is a vehicle for towing Iran’s nuclear program out of the main lanes of U.S.-Iranian relations and parking it off to one side, thereby creating political and diplomatic space for greater interaction between Washington and Tehran—a fundamental condition for building the new regional order to which the Realignment aspires.
Second, it is a tool for erasing the containment option in American foreign policy. Many analysts have interpreted the elimination of nonnuclear sanctions by the JCPOA as the product of inept bargaining. Wily Iranian negotiators, we have frequently been told, hoodwinked the naïve Obama, who, poor man, just can’t seem to get his head around the concept of leverage in negotiations.
On the contrary, a savvy Obama fooled the analysts by disguising the JCPOA as a nonproliferation agreement. In reality, the deal was a sneak attack on a traditional American foreign policy. It was and remains a Trojan horse designed to recast America’s position and role in the Middle East. Sullivan and Blinken’s task is to wheel the Trojan horse into the central square of American foreign policy and, by brandishing their “centrist” political credentials, sell it as an imperfect but valuable vehicle of containment.
The doctrine of Realignment builds on the erroneous assumption that Iran is a status quo power, one that shares a number of major interests with the United States. According to this doctrine, conservative Americans and supporters of Israel fixate on Iran’s ideology—which is steeped in bigotry toward non-Muslims in general, and which advertises its annihilationist aspirations toward the Jewish state in particular—but it is not useful as a practical guide to Tehran’s behavior. That’s what professor Obama taught us in a 2014 interview, when he claimed that Iran’s leaders “are strategic,” rational people who “respond to costs and benefits” and “to incentives.”
U.S. allies needed to learn “to share the neighborhood” with Iran, he said in another interview. Their hostility was preventing Washington from gaining access to the more pragmatic dimensions of the Iranian government’s character. Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia nurture paranoid fears, outsize ambitions, and grubby sectarian agendas that draw them into shadow wars with Iran. Out of excessive loyalty to its allies, America has allowed itself to be dragged into supporting their wars, needlessly embittering U.S.-Iranian relations while simultaneously exacerbating local conflicts.
According to the Realignment doctrine, America will help its allies protect their sovereign territory from Iranian or Iranian-backed attacks, but not compete with Iran beyond their borders. In the contested spaces of Syria, Yemen, and Iraq, the United States will force others to respect Iran’s “equities,” a term Obama once used to describe Iran’s positions of power. Thus, in practical terms, America will use its influence to elevate the interests of Iran over those of U.S. allies in key areas of the Middle East.
At home, this policy is controversial, to say the least, and necessitates the development of tactics to camouflage the tilt toward Tehran. The presentation of the JCPOA as a narrow arms control agreement is the most important of these tactics, but two others are particularly noteworthy.
The first is the bear hug: a squeeze that can be presented to the outside world as a gesture of love, but which immobilizes its recipient. The Obama administration perfected the move on Israel during JCPOA negotiations. American officials routinely bragged that they had raised military-to-military relations between the United States and Israel to glorious new heights. To be fair, the claim is not entirely baseless, thanks to joint projects such as the Iron Dome missile defense system, which allows Israel to protect its territory from Iranian-sponsored rocket attacks. But if Iron Dome was the seemingly loving aspect of the bear hug, the immobilizing part was the strong discouragement of Israeli military and intelligence operations against Iran’s nuclear program and its regional military network. Obama made both seem less necessary by continually pointing to Iron Dome, which became a U.S. device for forcing Israel into a more passive posture in the face of Iran’s rising power and continued aggression.
The bear hug is also a tool for gaslighting critics who accurately claim that the Realignment guts the policy of containment. The ongoing provision of American security assistance to allies allows the administration to plausibly claim that containment is alive and well—that the United States is indeed “pushing back” against Iran’s “destabilizing activities,” and that far from discarding its old allies, it is committed to their welfare.
The second tactic is the values feint. When Washington tilts toward Iran, it disguises its true motivations with pronouncements of high-minded humanitarianism—ceasing to be a superpower and instead becoming a Florence Nightingale among the nations, decrying human suffering and repeating mantras like “There is no military solution to this conflict.” The values feint exhorts allies, in public, not to retreat before Iran but to engage in the “three D’s”: diplomacy, dialogue, and de-escalation. This trio, first deployed by Obama in Syria, now routinely rolls off the tongues of Biden officials who, in keeping with a plan presented in Sullivan’s Foreign Affairs article, are busy encouraging America’s allies to sit down and negotiate with the Iranians.
“We support any Iranian dialogue with international, regional, or Arab powers,” Hassan Nasrallah said last week. “We consider it as helpful to calming tension in the region.” The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the most lethal Iranian-backed militia in the Arab world, strongly approves of the Sullivan plan. And why wouldn’t he? The three D’s transform Iran and its proxies into America’s partners in “peace” diplomacy, and those seeking to contain them into bloodthirsty enemies of peace.
Now that we can see past the cute tricks that hide the Realignment’s true goals, we can state its four strategic imperatives in plain English: First, allow Tehran an unfettered nuclear weapons program by 2031; second, end the sanctions on the Iranian economic and financial system; third, implement a policy of accommodation of Iran and its tentacles in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon; and fourth, force that policy on America’s closest allies. If the United States follows those commandments, then a kind of natural regional balance will fall into place. The United States, so the thinking goes, will then finally remove itself from the war footing that traditional allies, with their anti-Iran agenda, have forced on it. Thereafter, diplomatic engagement with Iran will be the primary tool needed to maintain regional stability. (If you doubt us on this, give Malley’s and Sullivan’s Foreign Affairs articles a closer read.)
The Realignment rests on, to put it mildly, a hollow theory. It misstates the nature of the Islamic Republic and the scope of its ambitions. A regime that has led “Death to America” chants for the last 40 years is an inveterately revisionist regime. The Islamic Republic sees itself as a global power, the leader of the Muslim world, and it covets hegemony over the Persian Gulf—indeed, the entire Middle East. But the only instrument it has ever had to achieve its objectives is regional subversion.
Ayatollah Khamenei, the head of this colossal project, is a lord of chaos. After oil, the Islamic Republic’s major export item is the IRGC-commanded terrorist militia—the only export that Iran consistently produces at a peerless level. Malley and Sullivan got it exactly wrong when they argued, in effect, that allies are suckering the United States into conflict with Iran. It is not the allies but the Islamic Republic that is blanketing the Arab world with terrorist militias, arming them with precision-guided weapons, and styling the alliance it leads as “the Resistance Axis.” It does so for one simple reason: It is out to destroy the American order in the Middle East.
Iran’s militia network and nuclear program have made it strong enough to be a major factor in every troubled corner of the Middle East, but not strong enough to build an alternative order. Herein lies a curious contradiction in Khamenei’s project. Iran cannot actually hold or stabilize contested areas without a helpful American posture.
Iran is strong enough to be a major factor in every troubled corner of the Middle East, but not strong enough to build an alternative order.
This same contradiction bedevils the Realignment, whose architects think that partnership with Iran is the ticket to ending American military interventions in the Middle East. But the experiences of both Iraq and Syria proved the fallacy of this vision. On Obama’s watch, when the U.S. withdrew its troops from Iraq, Iran’s influence increased exponentially. And what happened? Iran-backed militias sprouted like weeds across the landscape. The ensuing chaos created the vacuum which the Islamic State filled, forcing Obama to re-intervene militarily—but now with the American military serving, in effect, as the air force of Iran’s militias. Obama didn’t end military interventions; he just switched sides.
An analogous process took place in Syria. In order to save the Assad regime, Iran needed not just the intervention of the Russian military to shore up its position against the Syrian opposition forces, but the assistance of the United States. Obama kept both Turkey and Israel at bay while the Russians, Iranians, and Iran’s militias slaughtered over 500,000 people and uprooted 10 million more from their homes.
Obama and his staffers, who are now Biden’s staffers, already tested the potential of Realignment. It brought only suffering and death, not to mention a general weakening of the American position.
Domestic politics partially explains the hold that this empty theory exercises over otherwise bright minds. The Realignment was the signature initiative of Barack Obama, who remains either the most powerful man in Democratic politics or a very close second. By winning the presidency, Biden is the leader of the party today, but he owes much of his personal popularity as well as his victory itself to his former boss.
The organizational chart of the State Department says that Malley reports to the secretary of state. What the chart does not reveal is that Malley, as the keeper of Obama’s Iran flame, reports to Blinken, in effect, through Obama. As for Sullivan, he reports to Biden directly, but his ability to deviate from Obama’s agenda is limited by a simple fact of life. As Sullivan himself observed in a December interview, “We’ve reached a point where foreign policy is domestic policy, and domestic policy is foreign policy.”
Biden won the electoral college by only 45,000 votes spread over three states—a razor thin margin. He still desperately needs the support of Obama, who alone can bridge the Democratic Party’s progressive and Clintonian wings. Moreover, if power is the ability to convince people that their success in the future requires keeping you happy in the present, then Obama has a lot of direct power over Sullivan. If Sullivan aspires to one day serve as secretary of state or secretary of defense, he knows that Obama will remain a power broker in Democratic politics long after Biden has left the scene.
The political heft of the Realignment derives not just from Obama’s personal support but also from the support of progressives whose cosmology it affirms. It equates a policy of containing Iran with a path to endless war, and transforms a policy of accommodating Iran into the path to peace. It reduces the complexities of the Middle East to a Manichean morality tale that pits the progressives against their mythological foes—Evangelical Christians, “neoconservatives,” and Zionists. The Realignment depicts these foes as co-conspirators with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, plotting to keep America mired in the Middle East.
The role that the Realignment casts for Israel bears close scrutiny. Jake Sullivan’s Foreign Affairs article called for preventing U.S. allies from holding American policy “hostage to maximalist regional demands” regarding the JCPOA. Yet Sullivan all but abstained from mentioning Israel, the country that has been most vocal and effective at making such demands. This omission is, of course, no accident.
Contemporary progressivism is, shall we say, less than enthusiastic about Zionism. One of its cherished goals is to reduce American support for Israel, and the Realignment helps it realize that ambition—but it does so slyly. It refrains from making its anti-Zionism explicit for fear of stirring up opposition to the project among the largely pro-Israel American people. But by upgrading relations with Iran, the Realignment perforce downgrades the Jewish state.
How Israel responds to this downgrading will depend on how its prolonged domestic crisis, marked by four national elections in two years’ time, finally gets resolved. Netanyahu haters in the Biden administration will be sure to delight if he is toppled from power and succeeded by someone with less foreign policy experience, such as Yair Lapid, the chairman of the Yesh Atid party. The White House believes that a post-Netanyahu Israel will work to accommodate its main demands. If, however, Netanyahu remains in power (or if he is succeeded by someone with a similar disposition on Iran), then the Israelis will not readily accept the diminished role assigned to them by the Realignment.
As Biden moves swiftly to put Netanyahu (or a like-minded successor) in a bear hug, the Israeli prime minister will bend, twist, squirm, and occasionally throw a sharp elbow and kick a shin. Both Biden and Netanyahu, each for his own domestic reasons, will deny the depth of the conflict. Broad smiles, professions of friendship, and much fancy footwork, all produced for the benefit of the cameras, will turn this wrestling match into a contorted tango.
Their dance will move through five flashpoints—the five irresolvable tensions between Jerusalem and Washington that the Realignment creates. The first is, of course, the JCPOA. The Israelis, for their part, will try to prevent the quarrel from poisoning cooperation in general, but will not refrain from exposing the defects of the deal to the world, and especially to Congress. The JCPOA breathes an air of distrust into U.S.-Israel relations, which will thicken as Israel continues to conduct covert actions inside Iran. The Biden team’s response, as we have already seen, will be to urge restraint on Jerusalem, thus generating the second flashpoint.
The primary goal of Israeli covert operations has historically been to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program, but more recently, they have also served as a means to publicize the flaws of the JCPOA and to expose Iranian cheating. The covert Israeli campaign now also serves as propaganda by action, showcasing opposition to Biden’s Realignment. The recent sabotage of the Natanz nuclear facility’s power station, a case in point, coincided not just with the negotiations in Vienna over the JCPOA, but also with the visit of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to Jerusalem. The operation embarrassed Washington, not least by refuting its contention that the only way to prevent war is to legitimize Iran’s nuclear program. If diminutive Israel can sabotage Iran’s most secure facilities on its own without sparking a war, how much more could it accomplish with the active assistance of the United States?
For its part, the Biden administration responded to the embarrassment by issuing a private rebuke to Jerusalem, while calling for more coordination and an agreed policy of “no surprises.” A similar dynamic is playing out over the third flashpoint—namely, the clash between Washington and Jerusalem over Israeli attacks on Iranian military targets in Syria and elsewhere in the region. A meeting in April between Sullivan and his Israeli counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat, established “an interagency working group” to focus on the threat of Iranian-produced precision-guided missiles, which Tehran provides to its regional assets. The White House will spin the working group as a united effort to “push back” on Iran, but it is actually a tool for monitoring and restraining Israel.
As the pressure from Washington to support the three D’s mounts, Jerusalem will search for partners who can assist it, both in containing Iran and in persuading the United States to abandon the Realignment. Impediments to effective coordination between Riyadh and Jerusalem abound, but the Saudis remain the most likely candidate, as there is still a chance that shared circumstances will force closer coordination between the two. But the Biden team will monitor relations between Riyadh and Jerusalem and interdict when necessary—thus creating the fourth flash point.
It was, once again, the Obama administration that fashioned the template for such interdiction. In 2012, when Washington grew fearful that Israel might launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, four senior U.S. diplomats and military intelligence officials briefed Foreign Policy on alleged cooperation between Azerbaijan and Israel in preparation for the attack. “The Israelis have bought an airfield,” one anonymous official said, “and the airfield is called Azerbaijan.” Officials in Baku categorically denied the report, which indeed was likely bogus. But the point was to intimidate Jerusalem and any of its potential anti-Iran partners, not to put out truthful information.
The final flashpoint will be the Palestinian question. As tensions with Jerusalem rise over Iran, the administration will execute its values feint, criticizing Israel for choosing the path of “war.” But it will be over the Palestinian issue that the Biden team will deliver the harshest public scolding. The issue helps camouflage American rage over Israel’s independent Iran policy, presenting it instead as a righteous fight over “values.”
The administration wasted no time in reviving this values conflict. On April 7, Blinken resumed U.S. funding for the Palestinian leadership that the Trump administration had cut, including for the controversial United Nations Relief and Works Agency, saying it “aligns with the values and interests of our allies” (as defined solely by the Biden administration, he neglected to add). Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the United States and the United Nations, quickly clarified that “Israel is strongly opposed to the anti-Israel and antisemitic activity happening in UNRWA’s facilities.”
Elevating the Palestinian question to the top of U.S.-Israel relations will further reduce the chance of a bilateral Saudi-Israeli breakthrough. Any efforts to advance the Abraham Accords, or to thwart the White House’s Iran policy, will be met with rebukes that Israel is trying to detract from justice for the Palestinians. The launch of another round of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations might be one way for the Biden team to lend plausibility to this claim. Given the failure of previous rounds, however, Biden may instead choose to launch talks with Israelis and Palestinians about how to preserve the two-state solution in the absence of a peace process. From any such talks, demands on Israel to take impossible actions will flow like a gusher, allowing Washington to pose as the champion of Palestinian rights against the recalcitrant Israelis.
With the stage thus set, an echo chamber of “independent” voices in the media will deliver a harsh reproach to Israel, which the Biden team will have scripted but will prefer not to deliver directly. “The United States needs to tell Israeli leaders to cease provocative settlement construction and … oppressive security practices,” wrote Obama’s CIA director, John Brennan, in The New York Times on April 27. This was an early warning. As the tensions between Jerusalem and Washington mount, voices shriller than Brennan’s will decry the Israelis as corrupt and cruel warmongers, sabotaging not just peace diplomacy, but also mom and apple pie.
For the pro-Israel community, the Realignment represents both an intellectual and political challenge. Intellectually, it forces a rethinking of what constitutes a pro-Israel policy. Traditionally, a position passes this litmus test if it supports strong bilateral ties, including the provision of American military aid. But supporters of the Realignment—by guaranteeing Israel’s qualitative military edge and right to defend itself, and by verbally affirming the enduring strength of American-Israeli bonds—easily pass this test, even as they empower Iran across the Middle East and provide it with a pathway to a nuclear weapon. To give the term “pro-Israel” a definition that meets the challenge of the day requires advocating for the containment of Iran, not just the defense of Israel, and for a peace strategy that focuses on Saudi Arabia.
For Jewish Democrats especially, this definition poses a severe political challenge. Progressives and Biden surrogates will attack this definition of “pro-Israel” as the “Trumpist” version, which to them means repudiating American values, choosing war over diplomacy, whitewashing Saudi “crimes,” and helping Israeli settlers “colonize” the Palestinians.
Some supporters of the administration will not hesitate to accuse Jews of sending American men and women in uniform to die for Israel. In 2018, when the Mossad spirited the nuclear archive from Tehran, Colin Kahl, a Stanford professor and Biden’s former national security adviser, tweeted that the Israeli operation “sure has an eerie pre-2003 Iraq vibe to it.” In other words, the Israeli intelligence operation, a heroic feat straight out of a Hollywood movie, was a Jewish plot to sucker America into a war for Israel. Kahl is now Joe Biden’s undersecretary of defense for policy, the third most powerful person in the Pentagon. During his Senate confirmation process, Kahl’s supporters defended him against the accusation that he harbored an anti-Israel bias by noting that, under Obama, he helped advance American-Israeli cooperation on Iron Dome.
As the pro-Israel community debates what constitutes sensible policy, its right and left wings are gearing up for a fight. Enter: Sullivan and Blinken. They move between the bickering factions, holding up their arms in a plea for calm. The duo have exactly what it takes to forge a third way between Trump’s “maximum pressure” and Obama’s Realignment—a Clintonian way that will square the circle, thread the needle, and ride two horses at once. Don’t brawl with each other, they say. Don’t split your community. Rest assured, we have your back. We have no illusions about Iran. Our commitment to Israel’s security remains unyielding.
Wouldn’t it be nice to believe all that? Unfortunately, this third way is a myth—and a dangerous one at that. It is buying time and goodwill for an administration that, as it races hell-for-leather to finish what Obama started, deserves neither.
The Realignment is just clever enough to be stupid on a grand scale. When Malley refers to Obama’s presidency as a half-finished experiment, he means, more specifically, that the United States failed to compel its Middle Eastern allies to accommodate Iran. Washington, he explained in his Foreign Affairs article, must stop “giving its partners carte blanche” and “enabling their more bellicose actions” directed at Iran and its proxies. The ally who needs its blank check revoked most urgently, Malley explains, is Saudi Arabia, and the arena in which to start is Yemen. Washington, he wrote bluntly, must press Riyadh “to bring the conflict to an end.”
Sullivan’s Foreign Affairs article took this idea further, developing the plan for pressing Riyadh to end the war in Yemen. The United States, he explained, should tell the Saudis in no uncertain terms that a failure to end the intervention would put at risk the American security guarantee for Saudi Arabia. According to Sullivan, Washington must “insist on serious, good-faith Saudi diplomatic efforts to end the Yemen war and de-escalate with Iran as part of the terms under which it maintains a complement of U.S. troops deployed in Saudi Arabia.” To sustain this “de-escalation,” the U.S. must then press Riyadh to enter into “dialogue” with Tehran.
Clearly, the plan to give a rib-cracking bear hug to Saudi Arabia was in place long before the election of Biden. Once the new team took office, it lost no time in putting on the squeeze. On Jan. 27, the administration announced a freeze on arms sales. On Feb. 4, it declared an end to support for “offensive” operations in Yemen. On Feb. 5, it expressed its intentions to remove the Houthis, Iran’s proxy in Yemen, from the terrorism list, and on Feb. 16, it made good on its promise.
Taking a leaf from Obama’s Syria playbook, the Biden administration thus recognized Yemen as a de facto Iranian sphere of interest. However, the slogan of the Houthi movement—“Allah is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam”—does not poll well among a majority of American voters. To disguise the fact that its policies are empowering the Houthis and the Iranians, the Biden administration deployed the values feint.
The Biden administration thus recognized Yemen as a de facto Iranian sphere of interest.
The goal of the decision to lift the terrorism designation on the Houthis, Blinken explained, was to alleviate “the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen.” The administration came to the decision, he said, because it listened to the United Nations, humanitarian groups, and bipartisan members of Congress, all of whom had warned that designating the Houthis as terrorists “could have a devastating impact on Yemenis’ access to basic commodities like food and fuel.”
The Yemen values feint is a full-spectrum affair, with America not just celebrating itself as Florence Nightingale, but disparaging Saudi Arabia as a malevolent beast. On Feb. 26, the Biden administration released a declassified intelligence report on the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the columnist whom a team of Saudi operatives killed in Istanbul in 2018. The report, which concluded that the crown prince approved the assassination, came in response to no new developments. The administration dredged up the 2-year-old file purely in order to use it as fodder in a values barrage.
The crown prince, for his part, was in no doubt about the true reason for this salvo. “We are seeking to have good relations with Iran,” he said in a major television interview at the end of April. “We aim to see a prosperous Iran. We are working with our partners in the region to overcome our differences with Iran.”
But on March 7, two weeks after the release of the Khashoggi report, the administration’s values guns fell conspicuously silent. On that day, dozens of Ethiopian migrants in a detention center in Sanaa, Yemen, protested their unbearable living conditions. Their Houthi guards corralled the protesters into a hangar, told them to say their “final prayers,” and tossed explosive grenades into the structure. “[P]eople were roasted alive,” said one of the survivors. “I had to step on their dead bodies to escape.” Nary a peep was heard in Washington about this attack, let alone about the Houthi military campaign in Yemen which redoubled thanks to America’s green light.
By rewarding Iranian aggression, the Realignment’s faux humanitarianism only brings greater suffering to the people whose afflictions it pretends to alleviate. The sanctimonious policy simply ensures that Iran will enjoy a permanent Arabian base for launching strikes against America’s most important Arab ally, Saudi Arabia.
The tilt toward Iran in Yemen also has sinister implications for America’s rivalry with its greatest competitor in the world today. China and Iran recently signed a 25-year “strategic partnership” that funnels hundreds of millions of dollars into Iran, helping Tehran expand its nuclear power program, modernize its ports, and develop its energy sector. The deal also includes greater cooperation on defense and the transfer of Chinese military technology. Meanwhile, Beijing is upgrading its naval base in Djibouti, building a dock that can accommodate aircraft carriers 20 miles from Yemen across the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, which controls the approaches to the Suez Canal from the Indian Ocean. With each passing day, the prospect of a Chinese-Iranian alliance capable of dominating the strait increases.
The expansion of Tehran’s strategic cooperation with Beijing immediately after the election of Biden mirrors the cooperation with Moscow that followed the completion of the JCPOA in 2015. Iran’s growing international partnerships, themselves a product of the Realignment, only strengthen Tehran’s resolve to destroy the American regional security system. The Islamic Republic is an unappeasable power. Khamenei will pocket every concession that America offers and then demand more—in blood.
Yet it is with supreme confidence that the supporters of Realignment present their policy. They make as if the superiority of their method has been proven—as if we can all see that their formula will take America off its war footing, and stabilize the Middle East, and protect America’s interests, and safeguard its closest allies. Not only is the claim too good to be true, but there is simply no evidentiary basis for it—zero. If any evidence did exist, the supporters of Realignment would make their argument honestly and forthrightly and stop hiding behind a high wall of cute deceptions.
The same supreme confidence also characterizes the Biden team’s attitude toward Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign, which it derides as reckless, incoherent, and ineffective. On Trump’s watch, the Iranian economy suffered catastrophic losses. Not only did anti-regime demonstrations break out in every major Iranian city in 2019, but corresponding protests erupted in Iraq, aimed directly or indirectly at Iran’s proxies there. But Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy was much more than just the imposition of economic sanctions. It also included direct American military action, support for military action by allies, unilateral American covert operations, and support for the covert operations of allies—all of which the Realignment is bringing to an abrupt end.
Most impressive of all was the blow that Trump delivered to the IRGC, the most feared element in a regime that, increasingly, rules through fear alone. Trump ended the fiction, which had greatly benefited Iran, that its proxies were independent actors rather than direct arms of the IRGC. This policy of holding Iran directly responsible culminated in the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the head of the IRGC’s Quds Force and the second most powerful man in Iran.
Meanwhile, the Israelis (presumably) escalated their covert campaign of sabotage and intelligence collection against Iran’s nuclear program. Earlier in Trump’s presidency, they damaged dozens of sensitive Iranian facilities and captured its nuclear archive. In a dramatic operation, they killed Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the head of Iran’s nuclear program. To the best of our knowledge, Iran has apprehended no Israeli operatives, who apparently have the run of the entire country.
By penetrating Iran’s defenses, Israel—with the support of the Trump administration—shredded Obama’s major justification for the JCPOA by demonstrating that the United States can manage the Iran challenge, including its nuclear dimension, with a relatively light American military commitment. The networks inside Iran sabotaging the nuclear program are not American; they are Israeli. By supporting America’s ally, Trump did not get suckered into unwanted conflicts; he empowered others to do America’s work for it.
Trump followed the example of all U.S. presidents prior to Obama, who conceived of the Middle East as a rectangular table, with America and its traditional allies seated on one side, and America’s rivals, including Iran and Russia, on the other. The job of the United States, in this time-honored conception, is twofold: to mediate among the allies, who are a fractious lot, and to support them against the opposing side.
“Maximum pressure” was a form of collective security. It encouraged closer cooperation between American allies, and therefore played a major role in the Abraham Accords, the peace agreements leading to expanded cultural, economic, and military ties between Israel and Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Sudan—all of which are close to Saudi Arabia. None would have normalized relations with Israel if Riyadh had opposed the move. The next logical step in the process, and the strategic prize of the effort, was for the next U.S. president to advance the Israeli-Saudi rapprochement.
It is impossible to exaggerate the value to the United States of a full-blown Saudi-Israeli peace agreement or even of significant steps in that direction. The 9/11 attacks announced that a doctrine of radical intolerance had taken deeper root inside the Muslim world than we had realized—a doctrine that seeks to wall off Muslim societies from non-Muslim influences. The Emiratis, the lead players in the Abraham Accords, see peace with Israel as part of a multipronged effort to refute this intolerant view of Islam and Muslim history. Saudi Arabia is the most powerful Arab country and, thanks to its guardianship of Mecca and Medina, one of the most influential countries in the entire Muslim world. It has also long been the fortress of conservative Islamic jurisprudence and Quranic literalism. If the country toward which all Muslims pray five times a day, and to which some 2 million make annual pilgrimages, develops openly friendly relations with the Jewish state, the implications for relations between Muslims and non-Muslims everywhere would be profound.
Yet the Biden administration has forbidden its officials from even using the term “Abraham Accords,” which, under the influence of the Realignment, it abhors. Because the accords are politically popular, even in Democratic circles, the administration will refrain from expressing its abhorrence frankly, and will look for every opportunity to claim that it looks favorably on the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
In reality, however, the Biden team has no intention to expand the Abraham Accords, whose very existence is a blot on the Democrats’ record. It refutes the dogma preached by the Obama administration that peace between Israel and the Arab world must begin with a Palestinian-Israeli agreement.
More importantly, the accords are also a threat to the Realignment itself. The Saudi-Israeli thaw resulted in part from the sense of threat they share about the rise of Iran, and the increasing unreliability of the American security guarantee. A strong partnership between Riyadh and Jerusalem would inevitably become the primary node of opposition to the Realignment from within the American alliance system. A desire to end any unsupervised discussion of expanding the Abraham Accords is probably an additional reason why the Biden administration devoted its first days in office to publicly disparaging Mohammed bin Salman and privately pressing him to kowtow to Tehran. “Do not dare assist Israel” was another implicit command that the Khashoggi values barrage delivered to Riyadh.
When Biden took office, he faced a fork in the road. On one path stood a multilateral alliance designed to contain Iran. It had a proven track record of success and plans of even better things to come, as the recent act of sabotage at Natanz demonstrated. The alliance’s leading members were beckoning Biden to work against a common foe, but also to promote greater cooperation and possibly even an official peace agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel. On the other path stood the Islamic Republic, hated by its own people and, indeed, by most people in the Middle East. It offered nothing but the same vile message it had always espoused. Standing with it were all of the most malignant forces in the Middle East, who either look directly to Tehran for leadership or thrive on the chaos it sows.
Biden chose Iran, fracturing the U.S. alliance system and setting back the cause of peace. His choice also delivered a victory to China and Russia, who are working with Iran, each in its own way, toward America’s undoing. In a perverse effort to liberate itself from its allies, the United States is soiling its own nest.
*Michael Doran is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. *Tony Badran is Tablet magazine’s Levant analyst and a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He tweets @AcrossTheBay.

Audio/The Middle East Muddle
A national security and foreign policy podcast hosted by FDD founding president Clifford D. May featuring discussions about consequential international affairs and security issues with top experts.
Foreign Podicy/May 11/2021
https://www.fdd.org/podcasts/2021/05/07/the-middle-east-muddle/
Clifford D. May/Founder & President
Reuel Marc Gerecht/Senior Fellow
Gilles Kepel/Paris Sciences et Lettres University
Bernard Haykel/Princeton University
About
Here’s a riddle for you: Name something Presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden have in common? Here’s one answer: None has appeared to understand the theological premises that motivate such groups as al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Islamic State — nor those that drive the rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Nor have they had clarity about the thinking of those brave Muslims who oppose such interpretations of Islam.
In this episode, host Cliff May discusses these and related issues with three eminent scholars.
Gilles Kepel has authored more than twenty academic books on contemporary Islam, the Arab World and Muslims in Europe, translated into numerous languages. A tenured Professor at Paris Sciences et Lettres University, his last essay, The Prophet and the Pandemic / From the Middle East to Atmospheric Jihadism, just released in French, has topped the best-seller lists and is currently being translated into English and a half-dozen languages. The excerpt: The Murder of Samuel Paty, is in the spring issue of Liberties Journal.
Bernard Haykel is a professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. His research focuses on the “political and social tensions that arise from questions about religious identity and authority” with a particular emphasis on Islam, history and the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. His books include Saudi Arabia in Transition and Revival and Reform in Islam.
And Reuel Marc Gerecht, a disciple of the late, great Bernard Lewis, is a former Middle Eastern specialist at the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, and currently a senior fellow at FDD.

How Governors and State Legislatures Can Mitigate the White House’s Iran Strategy
Richard Goldberg/Mosaic/FDD/May 11/2021
A few months ago it seemed that the Biden administration would pursue a more moderate version of Obama’s Iran strategy. Now it’s poised to make even greater concessions.
President Biden’s negotiators are camped out in Vienna today, overseeing what appears to be a financial rescue package for the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. While a few months ago there was reason to believe that the current White House would pursue a more moderate version of the Obama administration’s Iran strategy, it now seems poised to make even greater concessions to the Islamic Republic than its predecessor. According to news reports and background briefings by senior administration officials, the United States is offering to rejoin the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and lift terrorism sanctions on Iran’s central bank, oil company, tanker company, and several sectors of Iran’s economy in exchange for Iran agreeing to return to compliance with the pact’s terms.
Under the arrangement, Iran would not have to agree to any new limits on its sponsorship of terrorism or development of nuclear-capable missiles—nor would the original nuclear deal be strengthened or extended. The good news, however, is that Congress as well as state and local governments have significant leeway to counteract some of the mistakes the White House appears ready to make. I’ll explain presently, but first it’s important to understand exactly what the dangers are.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the nuclear deal is formally known, faced bipartisan opposition in Congress for good reasons. The deal reversed longstanding international demands that Iran halt all activities related to the enrichment of uranium and fully account for its past work on nuclear weapons. Although nuclear negotiations involve many complex technicalities, the reason for this demand is simple: the same centrifuges that can produce the low-enriched uranium needed for civilian purposes can also produce the highly enriched uranium needed for nuclear weapons. Thus the United States normally insists that countries seeking nuclear energy forgo domestic enrichment—what’s known as the nonproliferation “gold standard.” The Iran deal, by contrast, only limits the number and types of centrifuges the Islamic Republic can operate—and only for a limited amount of time. In other words, it slows down rather than blocks its path to bomb—and that’s assuming Tehran cooperates in the first place.
The Vienna talks also continue alongside fresh data from the International Monetary Fund demonstrating that the Trump administration’s maximum-pressure campaign had been more effective than anyone imagined. Iran’s accessible foreign-exchange reserves plummeted from $122 billion in 2018 to just $12 billion in 2019. By the end of 2020, the regime’s accessible reserves were down to just $4 billion.
The trajectory was clear. Despite their propaganda that maximum pressure had failed—a line parroted by the nuclear deal’s supporters in Washington—the mullahs were rapidly burning through cash. If maximum pressure continued, the regime would soon have to choose between a balance-of-payments crisis and negotiations on America’s terms.
Rather than use this maximum leverage to achieve maximum results, President Biden appears willing to settle with even fewer concessions than Barack Obama received. For instance: in October 2013, just weeks before the Obama administration negotiated an interim nuclear deal with Iran, Iran held an estimated $20 billion in foreign-exchange reserves, but was capable of “muddling through” for at least another year. The price of oil, meanwhile, sat above $100 a barrel. U.S. politicians risked severely hurting constituents at the gas pump by pressing to cut off all Iranian exports. Now, however, the U.S. is a net exporter of oil, prices are around $65 per barrel, and the Iranian regime is strapped for cash. Yet the White House seems content to get less with more.
And uranium-enrichment was not the only flaw with the JCPOA, which the Biden administration seems so eager to revive. The deal was silent on Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism, hostage-taking of American citizens, and human-rights abuses, not to mention the development of missiles that could deliver a nuclear bomb. Lastly, it came with a series of expiration dates on key international restrictions, also known as sunset provisions.
The first sunset went into effect last October with the expiration of the international arms embargo on Iran. The next arrives in 2023 when UN missile restrictions expire. The following year, Iran can test advanced centrifuges with international legitimacy. By 2031, Iran would be fully authorized to enrich as much uranium to weapons grade as it wants.
In 2015, these provisions were risky. But many JCPOA supporters believed or claimed to believe that Iran had truly abandoned its quest for nuclear weapons. And they could point to the fact that the deal brought the regime back into compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which it had ratified in 1970, by requiring it to address outstanding questions from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about past work on nuclear weapons. Today, we know Iran’s answers to the IAEA were lies—that some form of clandestine nuclear program continues—and that the JCPOA’s monitoring and verification program failed to detect it.
Evidence of this came in early 2018, when the Mossad discovered that Iran was concealing a secret nuclear-weapons archive—a curation of its past work on nuclear weapons. The mere existence of the archive and the regime’s deliberate attempt to conceal it from international inspectors offers us the clearest evidence to date that the mullahs never abandoned their long-term nuclear ambitions—and that they plan to exploit the JCPOA to achieve these ambitions.
Later that year, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu alleged that Iran was concealing nuclear material at a secret warehouse. In 2019, the IAEA announced it had discovered traces of nuclear material at an undeclared site in Iran—reportedly the same warehouse flagged by Israel—while Netanyahu announced the existence of additional nuclear sites in Iran. The U.S. Treasury Department dropped a bombshell that year as well: Iran continued to employ scientists who worked on its nuclear-weapons program at a secret military organization headed by the founder of that clandestine program.
This March, the IAEA’s director general revealed that the agency had visited three more sites in Iran and found traces of nuclear material at two. None of these sites had been declared to the IAEA. The failure to disclose nuclear material and sites to the IAEA represents a breach of Iran’s obligation under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, let alone the JCPOA. Returning to a nuclear deal that failed to detect these undeclared nuclear activities, sites, and materials is absurd. Returning to that deal without first demanding a full accounting of such undeclared activities is indefensible.
With all that in mind, it’s important to remember that there was still a feeling of hopefulness shared by Iran-deal skeptics across the political aisle in the early days of the Biden administration. President Biden and his national-security team acknowledged the flaws of the JCPOA and recognized the need for a better, more comprehensive deal. “If Iran comes back into full compliance with its obligations under the JCPOA, the United States would do the same and then use that as a platform to build a longer and stronger agreement that also addresses other areas of concern,” the State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in January.
The administration also committed to keeping terrorism sanctions on Iran, as distinct from nuclear ones, in place even if it rejoined the JCPOA. Secretary of State Tony Blinken, who explicitly made such a pledge during the presidential campaign, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January that it would not be in the U.S. interest to lift terrorism-related sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran or the National Iranian Oil Company.
By April, these promises were already broken. With Iran refusing to commit to any follow-on negotiations over its sponsorship of terrorism or development of nuclear-capable missiles, Price suggested the administration’s goal was no longer to “build a longer and stronger agreement” but instead “to focus on compliance for compliance.”
Far worse, the administration shattered its commitment to maintain terrorism sanctions on Iran by offering to lift sanctions on Iran’s central bank, energy sector, financial sector, and other companies and sectors tied to funding the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the regime’s paramilitary arm that funds terror abroad, abuses its own citizens at home, and sends its legions to wreak havoc throughout the Middle East. One senior official told reporters that these sanctions were illegitimately labeled “terrorism” to make it harder for Biden to rejoin the JCPOA—an outrageous comment in light of the fact sheets published by the U.S. Treasury linking banks and companies to terror finance.
One day later, reporters asked Price to name a single bank or company illegitimately subject to U.S. terrorism sanctions today. Price demurred. Instead, he argued that imposing terrorism sanctions on any bank or entity originally granted sanctions relief under the JCPOA was inherently inconsistent with the agreement. While the Obama White House and then-Vice-President Biden promised Americans that the U.S. would continue to impose sanctions on any entity engaged in financing terrorism, the Biden administration appears to be shifting the U.S. interpretation of the JCPOA in Iran’s favor—effectively pledging an endless subsidy to Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism—while getting nothing in return.
This last concession should be met with a strong and swift response from Congress, which is far from powerless in this regard. In 2017, Democrats and Republicans united behind legislation to impose sanctions on Iran for non-nuclear illicit conduct. The legislation, which mandated sanctions on entities affiliated with the IRGC, passed nearly unanimously in the House and Senate while the U.S. remained a participant in the JCPOA. The Biden administration is now challenging this bipartisan consensus and offering to skirt the 2017 sanctions law.
Congress has options to respond and keep terrorism sanctions on Iran in place. New Jersey’s Senator Bob Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was the lead co-author of the 2017 Iran terrorism-sanctions law. His fellow Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia—who holds a key swing vote in today’s 50-50 Senate—opposed the JCPOA in 2015 and supported Trump’s decision to withdraw from the agreement in 2018.
For members who support terrorism sanctions on the IRGC, the most straightforward course of action would be to pass a bill similar to the 2017 one, forcing President Biden to make new determinations and impose fresh sanctions on any entity connected to the IRGC or Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism. If Biden lifts sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran or the National Iranian Oil Company, for example, the underlying evidence that both entities help finance terrorism will still exist. Such a move by Congress will, therefore, force the administration to reimpose sanctions on most of the entities currently subject to U.S. terrorism sanctions.
If opponents of the renewed Iran deal are unable to obtain the necessary votes for such measures in stand-alone form, they could instead pursue an amendment to the annual defense bill, which is exactly what they used a decade ago to sanction the Central Bank in the first place. They also have the power to delay key nominations related to Iran, as demonstrated by the weeks-long confirmation battle over Biden’s nominee to become undersecretary of defense for policy.
But thanks to the distribution of power created by the American Constitution, it’s not only Congress that can make things a bit more complicated for Tehran. Starting in the late 2000s, state and local governments passed laws divesting public pension funds from companies that invested in Iran’s energy sector. Some states expanded to target insurance companies and banks connected to Iran’s illicit conduct as well. As of late 2016, 31 states had sanctions in place against the Islamic Republic.
Governors, state legislatures, and even mayors and city councils that already have Iran sanctions laws in place should consider strengthening and expanding them. For instance, pension funds can be divested from a wide range of companies that engage in or facilitate transactions with entities connected to Iran’s financial, energy, metals, mining, minerals, manufacturing, and automotive sectors—all of which have been linked to the IRGC.
States have other tools as well. Foreign banks must apply to state regulators to open offices and establish representation. Either by executive order or statute, states could consider adding one more certification to foreign bank applications: that they do not conduct or facilitate transactions with Iranian financial institutions except for those related to food and medicine.
For those who think states and cities do not have enough economic leverage over foreign banks and companies to make a difference, recent cases suggest otherwise. In 2015, Illinois became the first state in America to use pension divestment to target companies engaged in boycotts of Israel. Florida, New Jersey, Texas, and eight other states followed. When companies wind up on a state blacklist, corporate executives pay attention and change their behavior. Most recently, Airbnb reversed course on a decision to remove Jewish homes in the West Bank from its platform after Illinois and other states declared the company’s policy a violation of state divestment laws.
When it comes to Iran, expanding existing pension divestment laws to cover firms connected in any way to IRGC-controlled economic sectors could deter European and Asian firms eyeing a return to the Iranian market. Among just the twelve states with anti-BDS pension divestment laws, public investment funds hold more than $170 billion in international equities. Imagine the impact of 31 states teaming up to target Iran.
In the end, whether Congress, states, or local government prevail in derailing sanctions relief for Iran in the weeks and months ahead, the private sector will get the message loud and clear: any sanctions relief provided by the Biden administration could very well be temporary. If Republicans retake Congress in 2022, or the White House in 2024, the return of sanctions becomes even more likely. For corporate general counsels and executives around the world, long-term contracts with Iran are a flashing red light illuminating the legal risk, financial cost, and reputational damage waiting just ahead. And whatever the state of nuclear negotiations, the less cash the ayatollahs have, the less trouble they can cause.
*Richard Goldberg is a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He has served on Capitol Hill, on the U.S. National Security Council, as the chief of staff for Illinois’s governor, and as a Navy Reserve Intelligence Officer. Follow him on Twitter @rich_goldberg. FDD is a nonpartisan think tank focused on national security and foreign policy.

Taliban leader boasts of security under his Islamic Emirate
Thomas Joscelyn/FDD's Long War Journal/May 11/2021
On May 9, the Taliban released a statement attributed to its “Emir of the Faithful,” Hibatullah (Haibatullah) Akhunzada, who has been the overall leader of the group since 2016.
Akhunzada claims victory is on the horizon, saying “our country is on the verge of attaining complete freedom and independence, and with the Divine Help of Allah (SwT), the hopes and aspirations of the martyrs, orphans, widows, displaced and suffering compatriots of the past twenty-year Jihad are near realization.”
Akhunzada claims that “following the end of occupation,” meaning the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces, there will be “an Afghan-inclusive Islamic system in which all people shall feel a sense of representation based on their abilities and skills, and none shall have their rights violated, Allah willing.”
While this may sound benign, it’s clear that the Taliban’s “Emir of the Faithful” is talking about the group’s own authoritarian “Islamic Emirate.” He mentions the “Islamic Emirate” – that is, the Taliban’s regime – at least 15 times throughout his statement.
Akhunzada emphasizes that the United Nations should refrain from trying to interfere in the affairs of Afghans. He calls on the “United Nations and other involved countries to maintain their complete neutrality in the issue of Afghanistan, and not exert efforts against the lives, beliefs, customs and ideals of the people of Afghanistan that could face a backlash from our people.”
Throughout the past forty-three years of war, Akhundzada says, Afghans have “demonstrated that our nation will not tolerate imposed ideals and beliefs by anyone.” The Taliban ideologue emphasizes: “This nation has the right to live in accordance with its religious, doctrinal, moral and cultural norms, thus the world including the United Nations must acknowledge and respect this right.”
It is likely that the Taliban had democracy, as well as other Western political and cultural norms, in mind when these words were composed. The Taliban has consistently rejected democracy, saying it is un-Islamic.
Akhunzada makes it clear that his Islamic Emirate is its own political entity. The Taliban’s emir reiterates his previous pledge to provide “amnesty” to any of the Taliban’s enemies who lay down their arms and join the Islamic Emirate. “The arms of the Islamic Emirate are wide open for all Afghans that [sic] have previously stood in opposition to us,” Akhunzada says.
Akhundzada also boasts that the “[t]erritory under the control of the Islamic Emirate has exceptional security.” He says the Taliban is committed to safeguarding Afghanistan’s infrastructure, which his Islamic Emirate undoubtedly intends to use for its own purposes.
As for the Feb. 29, 2020, withdrawal deal with the U.S., Akhundzada says the “withdrawal of forces by America and other foreign countries” is “a good step” and he “strongly” urges “that all parts of the Doha agreement be implemented.”
He goes on to claim that the “American side has so far violated the signed agreement repeatedly and caused enormous human and material loss to civilians.” Akhundzada mentions that the timeline for the complete withdrawal of American forces has been extended from May to September.
Akhundzada then argues that the Taliban has fulfilled its end of the Feb. 2020 accord. “All this in spite of the fact that the Islamic Emirate has fulfilled all its commitments and kept its promises per Shariah law,” Akhunzada says.
While the Taliban hasn’t killed any American soldiers since the Doha deal was signed, and the jihadists have mostly refrained from attacking the U.S. as it retreats, there are many indications that the Taliban has not “fulfilled its commitments.” For example, there is no evidence indicating that the Taliban has prevented al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda-affiliated groups from fighting alongside its men. U.S. and Afghan forces have repeatedly hunted down al-Qaeda figures operating in Taliban country since the deal was signed. The Taliban has not even been willing to concede that al-Qaeda operates in the country, let alone break with the organization.
Separately, Akhunzada has never publicly addressed Ayman al-Zawahiri’s bayat (oath of allegiance) to him. The Taliban emir does not mention it in his latest message, nor has he addressed it any previous statement. It would be easy for Akhunzada to publicly disavow Zawahiri’s bayat if he chose to do so. He has not done so.
Akhunzada also continues to agitate for the release of the Taliban’s “remaining prisoners” in Afghan jails and says “the names of officials of the Islamic Emirate [are] yet to be removed from sanctions and rewards lists.” The latter is a reference to the Taliban leaders on the U.S. and United Nations sanctions list and rewards for justice list. Those leaders include members of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Haqqani Network, which is an integral part of the Taliban. Akhunzada claims the U.S. has failed to live up to its commitments under the Doha deal to free all of the Taliban’s prisoners and delist its leaders.
As part of its lopsided deal, which favored the Taliban, the State Department committed to “completing” the “goal of releasing all the remaining prisoners over the course of the subsequent three months” from when the agreement was signed in Feb. 2020. The State Department also committed to an administrative review of the sanctions, “with the goal of removing these sanctions” by mid-2020.
All of this was to be done in return for the Taliban’s supposed counterterrorism assurances and for the mere initiation of “intra-Afghan” talks.
“The Islamic Emirate assures all that none shall be harmed from the soil of Afghanistan, and likewise asks others to not interfere in the internal affairs of Afghanistan,” Akhundzada says in his statement. The Taliban has said the same for years, including well before the withdrawal agreement with the State Department. Operatives from various regional and international terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, and the Pakistani Taliban, continue to work, train and fight alongside the Afghan Taliban to this day.
Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal. Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.

The Assad Regime Is Using ISIS to Justify its Activities in Eastern Syria
Ishtar Al Shami/Washington Institute/May 11/2021
To combat the effects of the regime’s destabilizing activities in eastern Syria, the United States can focus on supporting local Arab tribes.
Actors in eastern Syria are continuing to use the fight against ISIS to justify the presence of their forces and conceal their violent actions against the local population. In particular, the Assad regime has continued to highlight what it characterizes as ISIS offensives both as ways to conceal its own brutal actions and push the international community towards a political solution in eastern Syria favorable to its interests. In combatting these activities justified as measures to counter ISIS, the United States could begin supporting local Arab tribes, a large population in eastern Syria who have not yet claimed an official allegiance with any side in the conflict.
In March 2019, the Trump administration and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced that ISIS had been totally eliminated from Syria. Today, however, ISIS is certainly operating in the region. For one, there are ongoing concerns about conditions in the al-Hol camp, where significant numbers of ISIS family members are held and recent raids captured one senior ISIS member. Furthermore, ISIS still controls small enclaves in Syria and northern Iraq that require consistent attention to prevent their spread. Nonetheless, ISIS activity in Syria is nowhere near what it was before 2019, and ISIS is far from being the most consequential or dangerous actor in the country at present.
Regardless of its highly weakened status, however, the elimination of ISIS continues to serve as a justification for entering the struggle over Syria’s eastern region, which is rich in oil. In this regard, the Assad regime has mastered the strategy of creating an enemy for the international community and then touting its own ability to fight and eliminate it alone. The regime then uses that “fight” to achieve other goals. The Assad regime has already used this strategy several times, including under Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, who used the presence of terrorist groups as an excuse to support resistance against the U.S. forces in Iraq in the nineties. In addition, the regime’s intelligence institutions have used terrorist groups to destabilize any stability in neighboring countries.
Similarly, during the Syrian Civil War, the regime has used ISIS as a scapegoat to conceal its own brutal behavior. This trend is apparent in the 2012 kidnapping of the American journalist Austin Tice from an area near Damascus. Initially, a video recording of the incident was released to media showing armed men kidnapping Tice, yet experts determined the video was fake. It was only in 2016 that U.S. officials received information from regime personnel indicating that Tice was being held in the military prison of the Republican Guard—affiliated with Bashar al-Assad directly. The United States has since attempted to negotiate Tice’s release to no avail, and U.S. officials believe that there are four other American hostages being held by the regime in Syria—Biden administration officials continue to work towards Tice’s release.
Moreover, Tice’s case is far from the only forced disappearance or killing executed by the regime or its partners and blamed on ISIS. In 2013, the dissident Lieutenant Abdul Wahhab Muhammad al-Khalaf was kidnapped in Raqqa from the ISIS checkpoint of al-Maqs. His kidnapping sparked outrage among members of his Al-Busrai clan that almost led to an armed clash between it and ISIS, until ISIS issued a statement that it had not been responsible for this kidnapping incident, providing evidence that he had instead been kidnapped by the Assad regime. What’s more, the incident coincided with the disappearance of the Jesuit father Paolo Dall’Oglio from the same region, where it likewise became clear after extensive research and investigations conducted by the security office of the Ahrar al-Sham Movement that the regime, and not ISIS, was likely responsible for his disappearance.
This kind of behavior has continued up to recent years and goes beyond kidnappings and disappearances. Last March, more than 21 people in the Maadan region in the Badia of Raqqa—most of them local shepherds—were killed in an attack attributed to ISIS. Locals and politicians, however, held the Assad regime responsible for the incident. More recently, in April, 2020, shepherds were again attacked in the Al-Tebbiy area by an armed group driving off-road vehicles that continued from five in the afternoon until after midnight. The shepherds sought the help of local residents to resist this attack on them, which resulted in the disclosure of the party. The uniforms and the vehicles used by the group indicate that they belong to an Iranian militia in league with the regime. This notion has been further substantiated by some figures working within the regime who have knowledge of the region. Officials from the Baggara clan have intervened to prevent revenge fighting against the Iranians, compensating the shepherds for their losses and treating the wounded with the condition that the matter be settled as an ISIS attack.
In addition to its use of ISIS as a cloak for the regime’s own actions, the regime's military activities ostensibly meant to counter ISIS are hardly serving their supposed purpose. In fact, some analysts have even pointed out that the regime’s military tactics will preserve the presence of ISIS in the Badia region without a shift in their scope. As such, instead of weakening ISIS, the regime’s anti-ISIS efforts serve important economic and political goals for the regime unrelated to counterterrorism. For one, the regime’s attacks against ISIS are focused on retaining important supply routes that support regime-held Syria’s beleaguered economy. In addition, the Assad regime, which is proficient in presenting phony enemies to advance its interests, seeks to use the ISIS issue in order to rid itself of international detractors and apply pressure for international acquiescence to a ‘political solution’ in Syria. This solution, which Russia has consistently promoted, would serve to maintain the regime’s control over the country.
This political solution is especially attractive to Assad and its sponsor, Russia, given the stagnant situation in eastern Syria. While Syria’s decade-long war has shaped and scarred the entire country in its own way, the east faces a particularly entrenched, complex state of conflict. The multiplicity of players and the complicated nature of the conflict in eastern Syria has produced a dynamic that closely resembles proxy wars during the Cold War, with Russia the United States both supporting local forces while only occasionally involving themselves directly. Now, with the U.S.-backed majority-Kurdish SDF controlling much of northeastern Syria east of the Euphrates river, and the Russian-backed regime forces controlling much of the neighboring territory west and south of the river (along with regime-aligned Iranian-backed militias), the situation in the region has locked into a festering stalemate.
Until a favorable political solution is reached, however, the Assad regime can benefit from continued instability and conflict in eastern Syria. For that reason, it fuels the fire of disagreement between the components of the population in order to prevent the stability of the region, often using ISIS to justify its destabilizing activities. As part of that strategy, the regime exploits the lack of U.S. support for local Arab tribes, which are the largest component in the Deir Ezzour region in the east. These tribes are in serious need of international and U.S. support, in order to fight the ISIS forces which displaced them from their homes, resist Iranian penetration and to stand in the face of Russian and regime ambitions.
Given the fact that these tribes are often the victims of regime attacks blamed on ISIS, the United States could support the Arab tribes in the region as a way to combat the destabilizing activities of the regime in eastern Syria while keeping them from acquiescing to Russia or Iran. This support would also help prevent any agreement by local groups to a political solution that favors the regime’s interests.
In general, the United States should be quick to recognize the use of ISIS as a scapegoat for Syrian regime activities and should continue to clarify the truth about ISIS activities in Syria so as to weaken the regime’s propaganda efforts. In doing so, the United States could support local Arab tribes, already in desperate need of international attention, and solidify anti-Russian and anti-Iranian sentiment among local populations in the region.

From Trump to Biden Monograph Afghanistan
Bill Roggio/FDD's Long War Journal/May 11/2021
CONTENTS
Current Policy
The Trump administration’s policy toward Afghanistan swung erratically between a 2017 decision to increase U.S. troop levels and wage the war more effectively, and an all-out effort late in the president’s term to negotiate a full withdrawal in the face of steady Taliban advances on the battlefield. The latter reflected President Trump’s increased efforts to “end the endless wars” not only in Afghanistan but also in Iraq, Syria, Somalia, and other countries where the United States has engaged jihadists since al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attack.
In August 2017, following a lengthy policy review, Trump announced that – despite his “original instinct … to pull out” – he would add approximately 4,000 troops to the 8,500 already in Afghanistan. Trump declared, “Our troops will fight to win,” including “obliterating ISIS, crushing al-Qaeda [and] preventing the Taliban from taking over the country.” Trump loosened the military’s restrictive rules of engagement and vowed that any subsequent drawdown of troops would be conditions-based, not timeline-based, which had been the preference of his predecessor, President Obama.
As part of his announcement, Trump said the United States would pressure Pakistan to cease its support for the Taliban. In 2018, the administration suspended up to $1.3 billion of military assistance in response to Pakistan’s failure to crack down on terrorist groups. In an effort to show that it was serious in the fight against the Islamic State in Afghanistan, Trump also authorized the use of the Massive Ordinance Air Blast against a cave complex – the largest non-nuclear bomb ever dropped in combat.
After Trump appointed Zalmay Khalilzad as the U.S. special advisor on Afghanistan, the United States and the Taliban commenced negotiations in Qatar in late 2018. After several fits and starts, a U.S.-Taliban agreement was signed on February 29, 2020. The Trump administration hailed the four-page document as a peace deal that would end the decades-long war in Afghanistan.1 Trump said, “I really believe the Taliban wants to do something to show that we’re not all wasting time.”2 He also said that the Taliban “will be killing terrorists,” including al-Qaeda, despite the fact that the group historically has been a steadfast ally of the Taliban.3 Similarly, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo proclaimed that the Taliban “agreed that they would break that relationship and that they would work alongside of us to destroy, deny resources to and have Al Qaeda depart from that place.”4
Smoke rises from the site of a Taliban attack in early September 2019 that killed at least 16 people in a residential area of Kabul, launched even as the terrorist group and Washington were negotiating a peace deal.
The agreement has four parts. First, it includes “guarantees and enforcement mechanisms” that would prevent Afghanistan from being used by terror groups. However, the agreement does not detail what the guarantees are or how the enforcement mechanisms are to be managed.
Second, a “timeline for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Afghanistan” was established. The United States agreed to conduct a phased withdrawal of its forces, with all troops leaving the country by April 2021. The Taliban, in turn, agreed to halt attacks on U.S. forces.
Third, after the first two conditions are satisfied, “the Taliban will start intra-Afghan negotiations with Afghan sides.” The Taliban, which do not recognize the Afghan government as legitimate, refuse to negotiate with it directly, hence the term “Afghan sides.” The Afghan government is to be but one party among other elements of civil society.
Fourth, a “permanent and comprehensive ceasefire,” as well as “the completion and agreement over the future political roadmap of Afghanistan,” are to be discussed at the so-called intra-Afghan talks. There are no conditions in the agreement for a “reduction in violence.” Nor is there a requirement for a ceasefire to begin at any particular time.
Assessment
Just one year after Trump’s much-anticipated announcement of his Afghanistan policy in 2017, he backtracked. The administration opened up negotiations with the Taliban before any tangible gains were made on the battlefield. In fact, the Taliban’s grinding military campaign allowed them to gain control of, or influence over, a significant percentage of Afghan districts throughout the country. The Taliban were not losing ground; they were slowly gaining it. Pakistan, once seen as a major contributor to the problems in Afghanistan, was suddenly characterized as a partner in peace.5 And Qatar, which had played host to the Taliban’s embassy and sheltered some of their fighters over the years, was cast as a neutral host for peace talks.
By September 2019, the United States and the Taliban were on the cusp of signing a deal. It was called off by the president when the Taliban killed an American soldier. Despite this, both parties signed the agreement five months later. While the deal has been described as a peace agreement, it is not. Nowhere does it state that the United States and the Taliban, or the Afghan government and the Taliban, have ended hostilities. Nor is a ceasefire between the Afghan government and the Taliban a requirement. It is an item to be discussed at a future date. If anything, the deal ensures that the United States leaves Afghanistan in exchange for nebulous Taliban assurances that they will not allow terror groups to attack the United States or its allies. Put another way, the agreement is a withdrawal deal, not a peace deal.6
Despite promises to the contrary from U.S. officials, the Taliban have neither denounced al-Qaeda nor hunted down or turned over a single al-Qaeda leader or operative. The deal calls for “enforcement mechanisms” to ensure the Taliban will not support terror groups. Yet no mechanisms have been put in place.7
An Afghan woman wearing a burqa gives roses to Afghan National Army soldiers during a ceremony at a military base in the Guzara district of Afghanistan’s Herat province on February 28, 2019.
Prior to 9/11, the Taliban said that they would not allow Afghan soil to be used to attack U.S. interests. The Taliban lied then, and there is no reason they should be trusted now. In fact, to this day, the Taliban deny al-Qaeda even has a presence in Afghanistan, which is obviously false.89 Al-Qaeda, which is still operating in Afghanistan, found the deal to be so favorable that it publicly endorsed the agreement.10 Any deal should have first required the Taliban to renounce al-Qaeda and hunt down or expel remaining al-Qaeda operatives from the country.11
The Trump administration was so eager to make a deal that it excluded the Afghan government from talks. This was because the Taliban refuse to recognize the Afghan government, which they view not only as “un-Islamic” and “illegitimate,” but also as a “puppet” of the United States and the West.12 In the agreement, the United States committed the Afghan government to freeing 5,000 Taliban prisoners, even though the Afghan government was not part of the negotiations. This somewhat ironically reinforced the Taliban’s view that the Afghan government is a U.S. puppet.
In short, the Trump administration’s deal legitimized the Taliban, delegitimized the Afghan government, and provided the Taliban with further incentives to attack the Afghan government, all while absolving the Taliban of their crime of harboring al-Qaeda both before and after 9/11. Taliban attacks against the Afghan government have spiked. The Taliban see themselves as the victors of the war and have repeatedly vowed not to share power with the Afghan government.
Recommendations
The political will to ensure that the Taliban do not regain power and that al-Qaeda and other terror groups do not retain safe havens in Afghanistan remains absent across the American political spectrum. Yet Taliban-al-Qaeda relations remain as strong as ever; the Taliban are stronger today than at any point since 9/11; and al-Qaeda is still a potent threat to the United States.
Therefore, the United States has compelling national security interests in preventing the Taliban from regaining control of Afghanistan and in limiting the terrorist threat emanating from South Asia. The Biden administration should implement several policies to that end:
Immediately put an end to the withdrawal deal with the Taliban. The existing deal benefits only the Taliban. It does not ensure a Taliban break with al-Qaeda, has no enforcement mechanisms built in, delegitimizes the Afghan government, and raises the Taliban’s stature in the international community. If the Biden administration is determined to leave Afghanistan despite the fact that there are compelling U.S. national security interests in remaining, no deal is required to do so.
Disrupt the Taliban’s state-building project. The Taliban’s ultimate goal is to return to power, restore their Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the official name of their government from 1996 to 2001), and impose their harsh brand of Sharia on the Afghan people. If the Biden administration is willing to keep a presence in the country, U.S. forces can continue to train and support Afghan forces that battle the Taliban. American airpower remains an effective check on the Taliban. In mid-October 2020, U.S. air support helped the Afghan government prevent Helmand’s provincial capital of Lashkar Gah from falling to the Taliban.
Keep military options open. If the United States does not wish to retain troops in Afghanistan, it still has the means to help slow the return of the Taliban to power and the resurgence of al-Qaeda. Washington can continue to provide military aid and economic and diplomatic support to the Afghan government and its forces. The United States can also encourage regional countries that have interests in seeing the Taliban fail, such as India, to support the Afghan government.
Isolate the Taliban diplomatically. The United States must roll back a decade’s worth of efforts to legitimize the Taliban as a responsible actor in Afghanistan and in the international community. The Taliban’s political office in Doha, Qatar, should be shut down immediately. The Taliban use this office to promote themselves as the true government of Afghanistan as well as to fundraise and develop contacts throughout the Middle East and beyond. All talk of delisting Taliban leaders from the UN sanctions regime must end. Taliban political, military, and propaganda leaders and operatives should be added to the UN sanctions list.
Increase pressure on Pakistan. Without the support of the Pakistani state, the Taliban insurgency would be a shell of itself. The Taliban rely on Pakistan for safe haven. The Taliban operate recruiting offices, training camps, religious schools, weapons and ammunition storage depots, hospitals, and safe houses in Pakistan. Families of senior and mid-level Taliban leaders live in Pakistan with the approval of the government. The Pakistani military and its Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate provide weapons, munitions, and advice to the Taliban’s military. The United States must apply meaningful pressure on Pakistan to get it to end this support. A sanctions regime similar to the one targeting Iran should be implemented to pressure the Pakistani government to cease its support for the Taliban.
Notes
Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban and the United States of America, Doha, February 29, 2020. (https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Agreement-For-Bringing-Peace-to-Afghanistan-02.29.20.pdf)
Mujib Mashal, “Taliban and U.S. Strike Deal to Withdraw American Troops From Afghanistan,” The New York Times, February 29, 2020. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/world/asia/us-taliban-deal.html)
Thomas Joscelyn, “UN: Al-Qaeda maintains close ties to Taliban despite talks with U.S.,” FDD’s Long War Journal, January 29, 2020. (https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2020/01/un-al-qaeda-maintains-close-ties-to-taliban-despite-talks-with-u-s.php)
Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, Remarks during an interview with CBS News’ Face the Nation, March 1, 2020. (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-mike-pompeo-on-face-the-nation-march-1-2020)
Bill Roggio, “Khalilzad flip flops on Pakistan, Taliban’s relationship with al Qaeda,” FDD’s Long War Journal, May 2, 2019. (https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2019/05/khalilzad-flip-flops-on-pakistan-talibans-relationship-with-al-qaeda.php)
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
*Ishtar Al Shami is a Syrian writer and activist.

Biden administration faces a crucial test in Marib
Khairallah KhairallahThe Arab Weekly/May 11/2021
Iran’s clear objective is to establish a wholly loyal entity in northern Yemen.
Iran is negotiating with the US in Vienna and other places besides Vienna and continues, at the same time, to exert pressure in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen on the basis that it wields cards in the region with which it can influence America and its local allies.
Tehran is taking advantage of the presence of a US administration that is preoccupied with domestic affairs and with the rising Chinese challenge. In the meanwhile, Tehran pursues a policy that aims essentially to impose a fait accompli in the Middle East and the Gulf.
Iran, through one of its local militias, has bombed the Ain al-Assad base in the Iraqi Anbar province, where most of the American soldiers who are still in Iraq are based. The Iranian message is clear: The “Islamic Republic” is in a position of strength and is negotiating for the lifting of the US sanctions imposed by the Donald Trump administration and it is not about to reconsider its behaviour in Iraq and the region. There is no indication that Iran is ready to discuss any retreat of any kind in Iraq, which it considers the major prize it won in 2003 after the George W Bush administration decided to invade this important country and present it Tehran it on a silver platter. The US is not the one that is facing off Iran. Washington has always seemed willing to make a deal with Tehran.
This is what happened during the era of Barack Obama and even during the Trump era, albeit it within certain narrow limits. The previous administration quickly ignored those limits when it took the decision to assassinate Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the “Quds Force” of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of the “Popular Mobilisation Forces” in Iraq. It killed them shortly after they left Baghdad airport in early 2020 and nowhere else. Until further notice, the “Popular Mobilisation Forces” remain Iran’s proxy in Iraq. For the first time, in many years, an American administration dared to harm Iran’s interests in Iraq instead of taking them into account.
The Trump administration revealed that Iran is nothing but a “paper tiger” and that America’s consistent problem since the detention of American diplomats in Tehran for 444 days from November 1979, lies in surrendering to the wishes and desires of the “Islamic Republic”. It has become quite obvious that those confronting Iran in Iraq are the majority of the Iraqi people, including its Arab Shia, who refuse to see their country gravitate into an Iranian orbit or that Iraq’s wealth be pilfered by Iran.
Iran is claiming that it is entitled to Iraqi compensation due to the eight-year war.
It ignores the fact that regardless of who started that war in 1980, Iran was still responsible for prolonging it and for the losses that have befallen the countries of the region. Should we take into account what happened in Iraq and Iran’s practices in the Iraq and Syria war? In the Syrian theatre, Iran is the main partner in the war waged by the minority regime against its people.
Likewise, a long chapter can be devoted to the Iranian presence in Lebanon, where the “Islamic Republic” exercises complete tutelage over the country and backs a president who refuses to form a government.
What is striking now is the Iranian intransigence in Yemen and the successive attacks launched by the Houthis on Marib. It is no longer a secret that Iran is aiming for the fall of Marib, while negotiations are continuing between it and the Americans.
Its clear objective is to establish a wholly loyal entity in northern Yemen. The Iranian ambassador to the Houthis, Hassan Erlo, pre-empted any settlement, saying immediately after Riyadh proposed a peace plan this March, “The Saudi initiative is a permanent war project and a continuation of the occupation and war crimes, not an end to the war.”
He set conditions for the “Islamic Republic” to end the war in Yemen, saying in his tweet, “The real initiative should be a complete end to the war, the complete lifting of the siege, the end to the Saudi occupation, the withdrawal of its military forces, withholding support to mercenaries and takfiris with money and weapons and a political dialogue between Yemenis without any external interference.”
Iran has not deviated from pressing its assault on Marib, using the Houthis, whose decisions are clearly taken in Tehran and not elsewhere, considering the US administration’s wavering and confusion. Moreover, it is increasingly obvious that Hassan Erlo, who is an officer in the “Revolutionary Guard”, controls Sana’a and that Iran is the ultimate decision-maker. Once again, the battle of Marib is quite crucial, especially as its fall would establish a viable entity in Yemen under full Iranian control.
In Marib, there is a dam built by Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan, may God have mercy on him, and inaugurated in 1986. There are also oil wells. Gas is pumped in the direction of Shabwa governorate. There has been a pipeline linking Marib and Hodeidah since the days of the late President Ali Abdullah Saleh. In the present circumstances with the efforts being made by the US envoy to Yemen, Timothy Lenderking, the Biden administration faces a real test. The name of this test is Marib, which is threatened by the Iran-backed Houthis. The Marib issue raises a number of issues. The first is whether or not the Biden administration gives in to Iran. Will it accept negotiations with Tehran in light of the pressures Iran exerts in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen? Most of all, we will soon know what will happen in Marib. We will also know if the Biden administration is Barack Obama’s third term in office.
What US officials should keep in mind is that Barack Obama had surrendered to Iran outside of Iran. He surrendered to Iran in Syria, where he spoke in 2013 of a “red line” that the regime is not allowed to cross, namely chemical weapons.
The regime used chemical weapons in its war on Syrians. The result was that Obama became oblivious to the colour red while he saw all other colours.
In the absence of a clear US position on the Houthi or Iranian attacks on Marib, there will no longer be a need for an American envoy to Yemen. Before even heeding American interests in Yemen and focusing on stopping the war, the credibility of the US special envoy needs to be protected because his arguments have not been that far from the Saudi peace initiative. The Houthis rejected the initiative for Iranian considerations and those alone.